Some friends of mine started cajoling that I maintain a hypermiling blog but I keep a TV antenna on the roof of my 2001 Mitsubishi Lancer GLX - which is a big no no for hypermilers. Admittedly, it does look hypocritical but bear this in mind people - before hypermiling I used to average a measly 16 mpg (7 kpl) in combined city and highway driving.

That is as bad as it gets in the field of fuel economy. 16 mpg is roughly as costly as driving your all-american SUV from GMC or Ford (the non-hybrid ones).

Nowadays I average 26 mpg (11 kpl) on a bad day - driving at night and against the wind. My top “score” was 33 mpg (14 kpl).

Hopefully, after reading that my TV antenna can be forgiven?

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Update (9/11/2008) : The EPA’s latest estimates has the 2001 Lancer’s (Mirage) fuel economy at 27/35. Or an average of 31 mpg (13 kpl) combined city/highway driving - which is the type of drive that I used to compute my averages above. So not a very far margin.

Also, I drove recently (100% city night driving and some traffic) with a head-on wind, floods and 3 passengers to my worst mpg yet since I started hypermiling: ~20 mpg (~9 kpl). Proof positive that bad winds, and overrevving your engine (so that floodwater does not enter your exhaust) will kill all hope for any kind of hypermiling. Drive safe everyone!

Update (9/25/2008): While driving in 3 hours worth of traffic and mostly city driving, plus around 750 lbs or 340 kg of people and groceries (4 passengers and about 6 bags of groceries) - whilst going through some rain, flood and a tailwind, I registered around 25 mpg (10.6 kpl) - not bad.