Hypermiling Update

Hello all. The Professor here, guest-blogging again for Mother Necessity. After our drive home from Rochester yesterday, MN needed a little time to gather her thoughts about what to blog next. Plus, she wanted sleep so it would be coherent. So, here I am with our latest hypermiling news.

We drove Tiny Shiny over the Catskills and through the woods to my brother-in-law's wedding this past weekend. (Congrats and love to the bride and groom!) It's 332 miles one-way to the Rochester suburb of Victor, NY - a long trip no matter how you cut it. Pretty countryside along the way, as you can see.

Tiny Shiny performed like a champ. Even with two packed suitcases, one full garment bag, and heaven knows how many little bags of snacks, books, CDs, and other road trip survival gear tucked in the trunk and under the little feet in the back seats, we got a whopping 39.29 MPG on the ride up. But that pales in comparison to the new Tiny Shiny record of 41.97 MPG on the ride home! (MN says I should round it up to 42.) That's a solid 27% above the EPA's estimated 33 MPG highway for the 2007 Elantra.

Cruise control on the flats, coasting down mountains, keeping the accelerator level going up hills for lower RPM, trying to keep it under 60 MPH, avoiding stops and starts... It all added up to going back and forth to upstate NY on just under two tanks of gas. Color me impressed.