By Steve Mertl, THE CANADIAN PRESS
VANCOUVER, B.C. - Recession or not, a lot of Canadians are getting ready to hit the road this summer and, not coincidentally, fuel prices are making their seasonal trek northward like Canada geese on their annual migration.
Pump prices are already above a dollar a litre in many parts of the country as retailers anticipate a spike in demand.
That's bound to eat into anyone's vacation budget, especially if the holiday involves driving recreational vehicles or towing boats and trailers.
But drivers can reduce or eliminate that extra cost if they adopt a few basic hypermiling techniques, says a Canadian expert in the fuel-sipping practice.
Winnipegger Manuel Santos operates GreenDriving Canada (
http://members.shaw.ca/greendriving/index.htm), a site dedicated to hypermiling. The light-footed driving style has had a dedicated following for years but interest surged with the advent of hybrid vehicles and last year's skyrocketing fuel prices.
Sites like his are getting more hits these days, he says.
"With the gas going up again people are looking for every possible way of making a difference."
Santos, an industrial electronics engineer, says hypermiling is a discipline that uses a tool kit of techniques to maximize the engine's efficiency and minimize the energy losses inherent in a vehicle's brakes and drivetrain.
Advanced hypermilers can attain fuel-economy levels comparable to hybrids and sometimes even better, he says.
The basic techniques are really not much different from what every road nanny advises: Ditch the jackrabbit starts, drive at or below the speed limit, anticipate traffic and upcoming stops to minimize abrupt speed changes.
After that it gets more complicated and, in some cases, brushes the edge of what's legal or perhaps safe, lending it a slightly rebellious edge. We're not endorsing these techniques.
"As you advance in your skill and your goals there is always a caveat that is behind these techniques," says Santos, whose work also appears on Cleanmpg.com.
Assuming your vehicle is in a good state of tune, the place to start is the tires. Pump 'em up, says Santos.
"What's on the door jamb that the manufacturer recommends is the absolute minimum pressure we should be supporting on our vehicles," he says.
Boosting a tire's pressure lowers its rolling resistance.
"If you have your tires inflated a little bit higher than what the manufacturer recommends, your tires will run cooler, they'll last longer, they'll wear more evenly and you'll save a great deal on fuel."
Santos says it's safe to run tires at or near the maximum pressure listed on the tire's sidewall. It's a controversial practice but he insists it will not cause undue wear on modern radial tires.
Once you're on the highway, Santos's next suggestion won't endear you to some of your fellow travellers.
"Perhaps the most important thing you can do is drive at or below the speed limit," says Santos, who rarely drives faster than 85 kilometres an hour.
It has to do with physics and the fact that power and speed don't have a one-to-one relationship.
As speeds double, the force needed quadruples. It takes four times as much engine power to move a car at 100 kph as it does at 50 kph, with the attendant increase in fuel consumption.
Cruising below the limit is obviously easier on a multi-lane highway than two-lane secondary road. Santos says courtesy is his watchword.
"There will always be folks that consider you an obstacle," he says. "Most important is to keep an eye on the rear-view mirror, be courteous, make sure you're not obstructing the traffic and they have an opportunity to pass you."
"I will hug the right lane and I'll sometimes even pull over if I see there's a column of traffic behind me that is approaching at a higher speed. I'll let them go because in the end we all have different priorities."
Santos recommends turning off cruise control when climbing hills. Cruise control systems automatically boost engine revs to maintain speed on hills.
"So you lose a little bit of speed but you also avoid gaining rpms, which are more fuel-thirsty," he says.
Then there's what Santos calls "pulse and glide," which involves gently accelerating to just above the desired cruising speed, then shifting into neutral to eliminate the drag produced by the engine and transmission.
"It is coasting with minimal resistance or drag imposed on it other than cutting through the air at that speed," he says.
"The idea is you consume a little bit of fuel getting up to speed but then you cover the distance with minimal fuel use because modern vehicles actually have fuel cut-offs when they are decelerating. The idea is to travel further and further with less amount of fuel expended."
Santos warns, however, that this practice is not legal everywhere for safety reasons.
"It is an advanced technique and it is meant to be used with respect where allowed. Otherwise, no way."
Santos points out some of pulse and glide's benefits can be achieved without shifting to neutral just by stepping off the gas pedal where the terrain allows for coasting.
Turning the car off at traffic lights is also controversial, and in some places illegal.
Hybrids cut their engines automatically at stops and turn on instantly as soon as the gas pedal is depressed.
Conventional fuel-injected cars usually fire up instantly with a turn of the key but it's arguably unsafe if the vehicle has to move quickly in an emergency.
As an alternative, Santos suggests shifting into neutral, especially with automatic transmissions, to again eliminate its drag as the car tries to creep forward.
One thing that's an absolute no-no is drafting, the practice of closely tailgating tractor-trailers to take advantage of the partial vacuum just behind the rear bumper, which lessens air resistance.
"That has never been OK in the hypermiling books," says Santos
http://travel.canoe.ca/Travel/News/2009/06/24/9913966-cp.html
Topic: Hypermiling on holiday road trips can offset high summer fuel prices (Read 3291 times)