Mileage competition May 13-14 2005

[nemystic]

It 's good to see that this topic has drawn the attention of the legendary hypermilers. For better or worse it is also soon to have the attention of the local and national media.

After some time off from work, I've returned to a very demanding schedule, which sometimes includes conference calls with Asia at night. Consequently, I’ll have limited opportunities to read and post messages in the forum. However, I‘m making a best effort to try to put the information and events associated with the 2005 Tour de Sol rally into perspective.
I'll restate that despite my continuing enthusiasm for the MIMA collaborative project, my current personal interests are not commercial.

1) Thanks in part to the research of chrs and other information on the forum, it's now clear that the method used by the Tour de Sol organizers to determine the fuel economy in the rally event was inherently flawed, and that it almost ensured a large positive or negative error for nearly all participants, including Prius and Insight vehicles.

2) With that in consideration, the 107 mpg determination for my event fuel economy is undoubtedly in error, as I followed the recommendation of the starting authority by filling the tank well beyond the first stop of the pump.
After reading the thread about this issue, it seems clear now that the vapor recovery canister was partially filled, and consequently, with the small fuel consumption of the Insight, the car wouldn't take so much additional gas at the finish line of the rally. In fact, a lot of gas was spilled onto the ground in the refill, and apparently not only in our case.

3) Our indicated fuel economy was exactly 93.5mpg at the finish, which I considered remarkable because of the weather and terrain conditions of the route, and a negative recalibration event within a mile of the summit of the 10 mile climb on I-90 in western MA. I'd be pleased to provide more detailed information, as xcel has requested, at a later time.

4) At least one other tour contestant (chrs), with only minor modifications, apparently achieved fuel economy of nearly 100 mpg on a carefully planned route of just under 200 miles, in conditions that were sub-optimal for high fuel economy! We also know that other Insight hypermilers can achieve this with the "less exotic" modifications under the right conditions.

After receiving requests for statements to the media, I contacted the event organizers, and informed them that while I support the ultimate intentions of the Tour de Sol event, I could not substantiate their calculated result of 107 mpg, and that I would be honest about that in subsequent communications with the media.
I’m now in the awkward position of attempting to do “damage control” for NESEA, after carefully following all of their rules, and doing the best possible to demonstrate good fuel economy as a contestant in this year’s Tour de Sol rally.

With lessons presumably learned by the organizers, my understanding is now that my vehicle entry official fuel consumption result will be readjusted to be within a reasonable margin of error of the trip indicator. NESEA has also indicated that later this year, they intend to organize another rally event that will use participating vehicle fuel consumption rate indicators as the metric.

With the public anxiety about rising fuel prices, the news about a vehicle achieving > 100mpg has drawn national attention. I believe that it would be best if the media were educated about the differences between bio-diesel powered vehicles, “plug-in” Priuses (Prii?), and modified Insights, particularly in terms of their respective total units of energy consumed and emissions per unit of distance traveled.
I'd suggest that the Insight community has the best chance of demonstrating that > 100 mpg fuel economy is indeed possible for a commercially available vehicle.

My best intention would be to try to help to transform what is now a difficult situation into a positive win/win/win result, for the organizers, the media, and the participants, and ultimately, we should hope, for the global community.
So, hypermilers and modifiers (or perhaps combinations thereof) can choose to either distance themselves from the anticipated event (probably to be held later this summer), or otherwise rise to the challenge and demonstrate that it's possible to have safe and viable transportation at > 100mpg fuel economy!
This may be a high visibility opportunity to help promote efficiency as a more significant part of the value system.

Hi Nemystic:

___Thank you for the well written reply. As with Chrs, you had an excellent run no matter the organizers screw ups. I look forward to your future replies and a list of the competitions as they appear.

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___[email:33p6d990]Waynegerdes@earthlink.net[/email:33p6d990]

[ericbecky]

xcel wrote

Illinois would be a great state for such an event given the lower speed limits in the less-rural areas...

C'mon Wayne, are you up for the challenge of helping to organize such an event. We can call it "The Flatlander Challenge".

[james]

Hey, it's nice to see someone being honest in public. Hope it's catching

I think, though, that basing future results on mpg indicators is just as likely to produce errors. Maybe not quite so large as filling the vapor recovery tank, but still significant. Even apart from any inherent errors, you have to consider, for instance, Willie's original turbo mod, with the extra fuel injector used during heavy acceleration.

No, if people want to get serious about mileage competitions, the only fair way is to drain the tank at the start, put in a measured amount of fuel, then drain and measure what's left at the finish line.

But regardless of whether it was 97 or 107 mpg, it's still a remarkable achievement, and something to show all the people who think hybrids fall short of EPA estimates. Speaking of which, I didn't notice if there were results from stock Insights?

[hawkGT647]

Originally Posted by ericbecky

C'mon Wayne, are you up for the challenge of helping to organize such an event. We can call it "The Flatlander Challenge".

Is it too early in this brain-storming session to ask where and when?

It would be an 12-14 hour drive for me, I would try to make it, if my work schedule allowed.

How many other people might be interested?

[chrs]

Wow, Brian (nemystic), your insistence on integrity is inspiring.

The organizers called me today, and said they wanted to give me a "tie for first, unmodified Insight" award, which I am quite pleased by. They are going to report my MPG as 79, same as the other top unmodified insight. I kind of wish that were being reported as something closer to my measured 99.8, partly because I'm uncomfortable with fiction in the press, but more just for the general goal of spreading the word that fantastic mileage is possible. But hopefully we'll all get over 100 mpg at the "rematch being planned this summer.

For the "rematch" over the summer, with MPG determined just from the computer, they are planning on inviting the top finishes from this event and maybe some of the other people involved in MIMA. If some of the more experienced (more than me, that is) hypermilers out there want to join, perhaps we can talk them into including you too.

There's been a lot of criticism of the event organizers here, from me and others, but I think we should cut them some slack for having made a few mistakes in their first attempt at this. And they are definitely doing their best to recover.

I also applaud the effort to organize "The Flatlander Challenge". There are a lot of things to applaud--insight owners are great people, eh?

Charlie

[Rick Reece]

I have managed to obtain a 100+ mpg average on several tanks of gas but it is certainly not consistent. Variables such as traffic, route and weather and speed all come into play. I track every gallon of gas and when compared to my lmpg the FCD is very accurate so I think it is an excellent tool to measure fuel economy. Certainly more consistent than spilling gas topping off tanks. I would suggest they use the odometer adjustment however to get a better actual mpg. Since the odometer overestimates miles by about 2% the actual fuel economy is slightly lower than the reading assuming you are using 165/65 R14 tires. We also have two Prius and I track their fuel economy as well although I have not checked the odometer. I see a greater variance on the Prius but it is close enough to still be usable. I assume part of the variance on the 04 model is the bladder fuel tank that shrinks and expands with temp changes but I do not know why the 01 Prius also shows more variation. The summer sounds like a much better timeframe for the event in any case. Warmer temps help the mileage and school being out means perhaps more involvement. Have fun, Rick

[ericbecky]

Realistically, I don't think there would not be enough time to organize such a competition for this summer. Too many things to try to coordinate, and not enough time to market the event.

Heck, I can hardly gets things organized for our Madison Hybrid Group event for this summer, much less a whole mileage/Monte Carlo event.

I saw that the TDI group is having a meet up this fall in a South-Central Wisconsin City. Maybe we can crash it?

Honestly, I do like the idea of a mileage competition in the midwest though...

[chrs]

Detailed results are now posted at http://www.nesea.org/transportation/tou ... sinfo.html

The press release (word file)announces that they needed to revise the results. And for anyone who really wants to dig into it, this excel file lists complete results.

Charlie