My Hypermiling Experiment

So a few weeks ago I read about 'hypermiling,'

a method of increasing your car's gas mileage by making skillful changes in the way you drive, allowing you to save gas and thereby have an easier time withstanding the rising oil and gas prices.

My car is a 1999 Ford Escort, which, according to mpgbuddy.com, is designed to get 28 mpg in the city, 37 mpg on the highway, and 32 mpg combined.

Long story short, over past week I've done my best to use hypermiling techniques. Today when I filled up, I discovered that I had achieved 42 mpg! Not bad, considering that about half of my commute is city driving. At $4/gallon, that drops my per-mile cost from $0.125 to $0.095. A whopping 24% cost savings. (Can someone double-check my math, please?)

Has anyone else had any experiences with hypermiling?

Thank You, Renewable Bio-Fuel, for the $4 Gallon of Milk

Golden Corn !
Originally uploaded by Lydd_Nel

Short-sighted policies based on the crisis du jour invariably produce many unwanted side-effects--the total of which almost always outweigh the perceived benefits. Thanks to the increased demand on corn for the production of "green" fuel ethanol (which by some accounts isn't any more green than gasoline), milk could soon be $4 per gallon. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Thanks to the world's growing and insatiable demand for energy, the use of ethanol could lead to even more starvation for the poorest populations. Plus, it's hardly any cleaner than gasoline emissions.

Sure, it's not just environmentalism run amok that's driving the ethanol surge. Tight oil production and instability in the Middle East is largely to blame. But even with increased ethanol production, the oil companies are taking the cue to decrease expensive oil production and refining, leaving fuel prices about the same.

I don't know where I'm going with this, except that a lot of people are going to get rich off ethanol (I'm talking to you, South Dakota), and the government will spend billions to ensure it happens, while the rest of the country takes the hit. Bottom line, ethanol is a fake solution to a fake problem.