Miles Per Gallon Junkie

My life as an MPG junkie

It takes a Prius or Honda Hybrid to drive as a single passenger in the car pool lanes. I travel 23 miles from door to door and 21 of those miles have a carpool lane available to me. I know that depending on traffic, I can shorten my journey by 10 to 15 minutes turning an average 40 minute commute into a 25 minute commute.

Shortening my commute and making it more predictable is huge, but I seem to be more obsessed with my gas mileage. The car has no fewer than two different screens that provide live visual feedback and charts evaluating my ability to conserve energy. While other vehicles bark off the line sucking down gas in the process to shave a second or two off their commute, I try to apply just the right amount of pressure to drive in electric-only mode. Like the four minute mile, I strive someday to break the 50MPG tank of gas. The climb up the hill to my house certainly adds to this challenge, but I believe it can be done.

While I've averaged about 46 miles per gallon (MPG) since buying the car in April, I hit 47 on my last tank and after two days into this tank I'm tracking over 50MPG. My family has confirmed my lunacy complaining about my slow acceleration, my incessant coasting, and the circuitous routes I take to avoid hills and thus hurt my gas mileage. On one occasion I opted to take Eve's gas guzzling Ford Explorer to pick up a friend who lived over a few hills just so I wouldn't hurt my overall mileage (yeah, I know).

So here's my dilemma. The Prius gets substantially better gas mileage when I hang out in the common folk lanes on the freeway. Stop and go, bumper to bumper traffic, it turns out, is great for gas mileage and potentially could create a--dare I say it--60MPG tank of gas (one can dream). Yes, I know this from experience as I willingly took the slow lanes just to see what I could to do.

Why am I obsessed? I can't answer that. Will I return to my old ways once I've accomplished my goal? I can't answer that. Will I move to a low-land home just to improve my gas mileage? Hmmm. Is my family's diagnosis about my lunacy accurate? Absolutely.

October 23, 2006