Perhaps we should all just agree to disagree with you on the subject of garage parking Wayne. While those of us new to Hybrids and this forum have much to learn from you, equating backing out of a garage to killing children seems unnecessary.

 

Well, I think if anybody is the Lance Armstrong of high-mileage driving, it's Wayne. Maybe Bob Barlow or Rick Reece could be the George Hincapie to his Lance Armstrong, but Xcel has basically invented half the terms and techniques used by not only this forum, but hypermilers everywhere. I'm proud to have him on the site.

My old high adventure training instructor used to say that a high ropes course was "challenge by choice" - that's how I feel about hypermiling. If you really want to obsess about it, you can achieve phenomenal results and eliminate wasteful habits and practices from your routine. If you just want "pretty good" mileage, then you can implement just the most significant fuel-saving techniques like slower acceleration and extended gliding. At the top of the athletic world, extremely minor changes in technique or training make all the difference. I think this is analogous to where Wayne is operating in the hypermiling world - backing into a parking spot to set up a nice glide out of it later makes a significant impact on his mpg since the rest of his techniques are already so fine-tuned. The rest of us little-leaguers are lucky to master a single segment with decent mpg using some of the patented Gerdes techniques. I don't see why anybody is getting bent out of shape - this is all challenge by choice. You get out what you put in.

Not wanting to back into a garage is perfectly okay - nobody's assigning it positive moral value.

 

You've lost any shred of credibility you once had.

 

Well said. I find all of the descriptions and discussions of technique very interesting and useful, from the simple to the extreme. What I find less useful are the discussions about the morality of the choices individual drivers make on whether to use them.

 

Hi Archslater:

___You know who pushed it that far with breaking mirrors, dinging doors, and who can’t do it … I just added another ridiculous scenario as an excuse as well.

___If I had a two car garage with a nice slope, here is another technique I might consider to get turned around w/out ICE-On … A hard 135 degree turn just before I get near the house. Spin the wheel the other way and coast down the slope. I do this with the Ranger P/U when the son and the friends are filling the drive and it works although I do not hit the bottom at 8 mph Giving up is the worst one can do in a particular circumstance. Working around the problem to fix the problem is the correct methodology and I see this as a challenge worth pursuing if your garage, drive, or street layout works to give you a healthier start. If Bluecivichybrid cannot do it because of his garage and drive layout does not work out, he cannot do it. There will be 5 other new HCH-II owners that will and the tens of gallons they save over their lifetimes because they are parking Face-Out wherever possible is tens of gallons not consumed and the effluent thrown into the air. Face-Out is just one very small tool in a Hypermilers tool box. It does not really take any thought other then DO NOT pull up to the front of the store at Christmas time to park or if there is some potential energy to be gained instead of the brakes, use it with a Face Out to give your next segment a healthy start.

___Civic Duty, thank you. I do tend to push to get everybody in line as that is in my nature online. It is kind of like herding cats Off line, it is just fun as Tbaleno and I have a running joke about his HCH-I and his ability to drive it into the ground at will just to get a rise out of me … With that, the guys who I would love to ride with for a day are Rick Reese, CalPod, Krousdb, RJ, HCH03, Lakedude, Kenny, Wolfman, GaryG, Billy6, and GPSman (I did get to ride with him for a whole day and it was an excellent opportunity). Those guys are my Lance Armstrong’s and Jeff Gordon’s. I just wish they posted more so I could learn even more from them

___Now if everyone including the HCH-II drivers just consider a few seconds ahead of time a particular action before performing said action, there FE can and will skyrocket! I have very few reasons to give to persuade someone to purchase an HCH-II over and above an 06 EX except for its FE, its PZEV emissions, and that nice early 06 tax credit now looming. If possible, I will also do my best to make sure all HCH-II owners are prepared to the best of my ability before they even turn the key to receive the FE they so deserve. This thread is a great start and I can only hope those that read it can disseminate the BS from the jewels.

___CGameProgrammer, you are the exact person who I will have to defend against over at Edmunds, ToV, DriveAccord, Acuramdx, wherever. 40 mpg out of an HCH-II is awful given your locale and commute. There will be the doubters using you as ammunition and Lars-ss, Hot_Georgia_2004, and I will have to say yes, he does receive that low of FE as he travels at 80 mph on his daily grind and only cares about max acceleration and time to destination. This is why his FE is so low. It takes 10 hypermilers receiving 51 mpg to make up for your FE just to get back to the EPA! I am glad you post tanks as it is a real world look at the HCH-II but to drive at 80 mph and tank your FE because you can makes no sense to me the same way my FE probably makes no sense to you. Given where much of the world’s fuel is supplied and how it has effected all of us, you and I are simply on opposite ends of the pole even though I may actually consume more overall Anyway, we do not see a Real Non-Hybrid Mileage DB with hundreds of Civic’s, Corolla’s, Accord’s and Camry’s placing details on tank over tanks. The EPA sites real world FE is a joke by comparison. The come back … Ha, I am purchasing a regular 06 Civic EX/LX for even greater savings, much higher performance, and similar FE because the EPA says it will receive that. You are easy fodder yet those that were persuaded otherwise will be receiving 20 - 30 mpg in those non-hybrid automobiles afterwards. It is too late by then as the damage has already been done

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes

 

Perhaps, although proclaiming so about oneself is tactless at best. I think that if I was discussing the best choice of bike and technique for my Sunday ride with Armstrong he would have the good sense not to lecture me about the best choice of helmet for the Tour de France time trials.

Do you put as much thought into avoiding unnecessary trips to the supermarket, mall, etc.? The potential savings from that are orders of magnitude greater. Do you keep your thermostat at home at 65 or less in the winter? (I do). It's all a matter of proportion, focusing on things that have a significant impact rather than trivial things that may give you the hypermiler trophy.

All good reasons. You missed my primary reason, which is to let my wife drive in the carpool lane on her daily commute to San Francisco.

 

Wayne, do not pretend to understand my commute or location. I average 41 mpg on the highway and 45-50 mpg driving on normal roads. So why is my tank average not 46? Stop-and-go traffic. I get 32-35 mpg driving in traffic, which is often. I accelerate as gently as possible and anticipate stops as much as it's possible to but it's often just unavoidable. Yesterday I was caught in traffic from a busy 4-lane road being reduced to 1 lane due to construction. I failed to reach 9 mph anytime I was in it so the car kept the engine running even when idling. I did turn the car off a couple of times but it still really hurt; the only workaround would have been to get out and push it forward.

That was unusual, but more typical is lights that turn red once I get to them (very often) or roads with many stop signs, or just lots of traffic. Sometimes I get so exasperated by traffic that I try to find the light-traffic roads that I have gotten 50 mpg on but it takes forever to get to them with all the traffic and it's just a big pain. Frankly I'm amazed I did get 42 mpg my last tank, though I think my current one is just 41 mpg due to that traffic.

Also, who cares what people on other forums think? You're like a high school girl worried about fitting in with the cliques.

 

Yeah, I paid top dollar for a hybrid so I could trash the hybrid philosophy and turn off anyone else who's thinking about it. But....I just KNOW that if I could get 90mpg that people would LIKE me better!

Tee-hee-hee.....

Don

 

Hi ElanC:
___Read the threads title again. Is it about getting the FE the HCH-II is easily capable of or is it about what clothes to wear and how to take a Sunday drive in the country in ones brand new HCH-II.

___You are **** straight I do! How do you think I have been able to type this all up over the last 3 days? By the way, it is 66 degrees when the house is occupied in the morning, day, and evening and 60 at night or when it’s not occupied. Because I am the only one home today, she sits at 60 degrees. Care to go that far or are you wearing one of those battery warming suits. Oh, you live in CA. with all that NG electrical power production. Here we have Nuke for electric but our heat is mostly NG too

___Another excellent reason to own a hybrid for the Californian’s, Virginian’s, and Maryland commuters. Illinois and the Midwest is about as far from an HOV lane as those living in the British Isles unfortunately … A bit of an exaggeration but you get my point

___CGame, I do not need to understand your particular commute to know that 41 is way below what is achievable from the HCH-II in your locale. For gods sake, I took a completely loaded up, not even close to being setup properly, rented Buick LeSabre across much of the desert SW into Las Vegas, into both San Francisco and LA, and back w/ A/C on MAX for 90% of the drive and still averaged almost 36 mpg in that pig! Do you think your commute is that bad by comparison to those of us in NY., LA., Chicago, San Francisco, Phoenix, Atlanta, Boston, or Miami to name a few that have stop and go for miles on end and somehow receive better FE in lesser capable automobiles even though its colder, hotter, raining, or snowing for 5 - 6 months out of the year? Traffic is traffic and it sucks. You just have to work around it with the tools you have in front of you. A heavy right foot at 80 + mph is not that tool however

___I guess I will wear the dress then? In the mean time I will coax you, persuade you, rattle you, and generally push or teach you how to push that HCH-II to tanks some might actually be envious of someday. There are a few hypermilers or soon to be hypermilers here with racing bents that are taking their hybrid automobiles to levels most have never seen or thought possible until earlier this year. There is an FEH, HCH-I, and AH pilot I am thinking about in particular and it will not take you to long to figure out who they are. One has owned a multitude of 60’s and 70’s muscle cars and his AWD FEH is kicking the crap out of your HCH-II’s lmpg through the late summer and fall months. The other owns and has hypermiled his Vette to almost the same lmpg that you are receiving to date. The last member has surely seen in excess of 150 mph on his Rice Rocket and generally drives like a bat out of hell but has taken that AH to some respectable segments as of late … In either case, they did not achieve their own hypermiling skill level overnight but they kept working at it and today, they are pushing out segments and tanks even you would be glad to have achieved for your very own in your underachieving HCH-II.

___Dshelman, I have no idea what or why you are posting in this thread?

___Now get in your HCH-II’s and “Just do it” as the Nike commercials used to say …

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes

 

Hi Wayne,

constantly "pushing us" as you said doesn't do anything for me except anoy the **** out of me. If we don't want to learn hypermilling techniques, your just wasting energy pushing a wall.

If we all leave this forum because we are fed up with that attitude, who will you push?

Knowing which buttons to push is one thing, knowing when to stop pushing is an even better thing.

As for the comment of what dshelman is doing on this thread, I could say the same. This is a NEWBIE thread. Your way to advanced for this thread, why are you posting on this thread?

Keep peace a chance man. Your a nice guy and all, but, you have to learn when to stop (and regen ).

Cheers,
Stephane.