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When Maurice del Prado of Dublin drives north on Interstate 680 and reaches the truck scales in Sunol, he puts his car in neutral and coasts almost all the way into Pleasanton.
Is he crazy? Yes, about saving gas.
Del Prado is one of a number of Bay Area residents who define themselves as "hypermilers." He and his ilk will go to almost any lengths to pare their gas costs.
Before he started hypermiling, del Prado got about 26 miles per gallon in his Ford Focus. Now he gets 30 or 31, he said.
"The No. 1 thing I'm doing is driving slowly and at a more consistent speed," he said. "Before, I didn't think about how fast I was driving. I just kept up with traffic."
Some of hypermilers' tricks, such as coasting downhill, are illegal, and some fall under the "do not try this at home" category, but all of them reduce gasoline consumption.
The movement arose over the last few years, spearheaded by Wayne Gerdes of Chicago, whose hypermiling Web site is at www.cleanmpg.com.
"Most California driving habits are a little too aggressive," said Gerdes, a former nuclear power plant operator who launched his site three years ago. "Hypermiling" technically refers to exceeding the Environmental Protection Agency's estimated miles per gallon for a given car. The basic principle is to keep rolling at a slow, even pace, avoiding coming to a complete stop when safely possible.
While there's much to
"There are good and bad things that go along with it (hypermiling), and it's important for the motorist to know which is which," said Michael Geeser, AAA's spokesman for Northern California. However, "Many of their tips are ideas we've been encouraging for many years," he
noted.Driving more slowly and avoiding jackrabbit starts is endorsed by AAA and just about every other authority, including the government's fuel economy site, FuelEconomy.gov.
But hypermilers have plenty of additional ideas.
"I use cruise control a lot, and the second thing is not burning rubber off a stop, just taking it easy," said Chris Chafe of Palo Alto. He's able to squeeze 28 mpg out of his 1979 Subaru, he said. Chafe's brother Steve has a hypermiling site, www.hypermiling.com.
Hypermiler Andy Corr of Alamo, a Corvette owner, lets his wild side out at high-performance driving events at places like Infineon Raceway near Sonoma, but he drives 60 or so off the track.
One thing that really bugs his liver when driving on the highway: "Priuses blow past my Corvette all the time doing 80," he said. "If you're going to exceed the limit by that much, why bother with a Prius?"
Corr considers the Cleanmpg.com. suggestion, "Do not idle excessively," a critically important tip.
"One of the worst things you can do for mileage is stop your car," said Corr, who squeezes 22-1/2 mpg out of his Corvette, a car that despite its small size is known for low mileage because of its high-performance V8 engine. Before Corr took up hypermiling, his mileage was closer to 19 mpg, Corr said.
"When you are just sitting there not moving, you are still using gas, but the car is not moving forward. So your mileage is dropping," Corr said.
"If you are waiting in line at the McDonald's drive-through or a similar situation and think you are going to be waiting for longer than one minute, you can save some money by turning your engine off," agreed AAA's Geeser. However, Geeser cautioned, don't do this at a traffic light or stop sign, in case law enforcement or an emergency vehicle might require quick movement.
"If you see that a traffic light is changing ahead of you, slow down enough to give the light a chance to cycle so you can either roll through at speed or only slow down half as much," Corr said.
"When driving, you should always be thinking three to six blocks ahead of where you are," Gerdes said. "Keeping an eye on what is happening ahead and anticipating what might happen makes you a safer and far more fuel-efficient driver."
Gerdes said he is able to get 37 mpg on his wife's Acura MDX, whose EPA estimated mileage is 17 mpg.
Longer drives on the freeway save money because you don't have to stop at traffic lights. But because you have to accelerate to get up to speed on the freeway, short freeway trips aren't advisable, Corr said; you won't drive long enough to make up for the extra fuel burned when speeding up.
"If there's a destination you visit often, like the grocery store or the gym, find country roads or local roads with no stop signs to get there," he suggested.
Though these suggestions aren't considered dangerous, how about that trick of taking the car out of gear and coasting downhill? Not kosher.
"The driver of a motor vehicle when traveling on down grade upon any highway shall not coast with the gears of such vehicle in neutral," California Vehicle Code Section 21710 says.
"It's because you don't have control of your car. Certainly you can hit the brake, but certain circumstances require you to accelerate and you have to make an additional movement to do so if your car is in neutral," explained Scott Yox, a California Highway Patrol officer and spokesman for the CHP Golden Gate Division in Contra Costa County.
Some identify "drafting," or following closely behind, large vehicles such as 18-wheelers as a hypermiling technique. Drafting boosts mileage because it reduces wind resistance and drag, both of which make the engine work harder.
But both Yox and Gerdes decry the idea.
"If you did get close behind a big rig you could reduce your gas usage, but it forces you to follow at an overly close distance and is illegal," Yox said. "Once you see significant increases in mileage, you are at the point where in California an officer could issue a citation for following too closely."
Gerdes said, "We don't advocate drafting. We advocate following at a safe distance."
He said he has never advocated so-called "San Francisco stops," in which the vehicle slows down but doesn't come to a complete halt at stop signs, though many associate the practice with hypermiling. Rolling through stop signs is against the law, Yox pointed out. But here's a hypermiling trick that is harmless and helpful: Keep an eye on the mileage counter, or purchase one if there isn't such equipment already on your dashboard.
"It's just like somebody stepping on a scale when they're dieting," Corr said. "If you can see what's happening, you can be aware of when the problem is occurring."
Del Prado, who doesn't have such a gadget, keeps detailed records of his mileage (as it happens, food diaries are also a dieting trick).
"Whenever I get to the gas station I whip out my little notebook. I check how much gas I just bought and look at my odometer to see how much gas I've saved," del Prado said. "It's a great feeling."
Janis Mara can be reached at 925-952-2671 or jmara@bayareanewsgroup.com. For the lowest gas prices in the Bay Area, plus news, views and blues about fuel, visit the Gas Prices Page, www.contracostatimes.com/gasprices.
