Hypermiling for Dummies

[billroper]

You may have heard of the sport of hypermiling, where you try to maximize the number of miles that you can travel on a tank of gas. Now that's far too much work to contemplate for most of us, but how would you like to be able to see what mileage your car is getting from moment to moment?

Via Instapundit, here's the ScanGauge II, a cool little device that plugs into your car's computer access port and gives you an instantaneous readout of your MPG. Going up a hill? Mileage down. Pedal to the floor? Mileage down.

Not getting squashed by that semi? Priceless. :)

Comments

[fuzzyvanman.livejournal.com]

I'd like one that shows the cost of a trip. You enter fillup info (cost & gal) and it works like a trip odometer but shows you the gas cost.

[billroper]

According to their website, you can do that.

[isherempress.livejournal.com]

I didn't look at the ScanGauge, but my 2003 Prius already does that for me, more or less. And boy do I love that car... it was used, cheap, and it sips gas, but when it needs to go fast, it does as well as my Corolla ever did.

[daddy-guido.livejournal.com]

most mid-level to high end modern cars have this feature built in already.

[billroper]

My 2005 Ford Five Hundred tracks MPG, but not on an instantaneous basis. So I could get some use out of it...

[ms-dblk.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links. Sounds like it might be a good thing for our late 90s vehicles.

[min0taur.livejournal.com]

Puts me in mind of a gauge that sat next to the speedo in the 1966 Barracuda my brother and I drove in high school: an analog dial that traveled over a green "economy" range and a red "performance" range. I believe what it actually measured was manifold pressure. No idea whether that measure actually meant anything or they just put a fakey stand-in for a tachometer in there. (I understand that there are supposed to be optimal-economy ranges of tach readings for each gear, but there's not much control available with an automatic.)