Mileage Quest

I just returned from HybridFest. Met some great people there. Threw some ideas around. Talked with Hobbit, who was living in his car at the local campground for the weekend. Very interesting, inquisitive and smart guy. His car is a real testbed.

I enjoyed a session presented by Ford Hybrid Engineering Team leader, Praveen Cherian, and Wayne Gerdes from over at CleanMPG.com. Seems to me Ford is stepping up and getting it right. The new cars will auto-stop up to 45mph and the dash presentation rocks. Great info for drivers and you can set the display to as much or little info as you want. I'm seriously thinking about some Ford stock.

I wasn't able to arrive early enough on Friday to participate in the MPG Challenge but I'll post the results below. Congrats to all who participated.

My personal challenge was to do the trip on without fueling the car, which was a success -- although I think it made my wife a little nervous toward the end. :) This was a 605 mile round trip through Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa -- 2 people in the car, suitcases, laptop, cooler, binoculars (our first night was a concert in Chicago), photo gear, bag chairs -- a pretty good load of common road trip stuff. But a nice comfortable ride using the A/C in econ mode about 30% the time and tires at 46 lbs. The Insight took 9.6 gallons when I returned home for just over 63 MPG average on the trip.

Hobbit demo'd a CFL bulb powered by his Prius all weekend. You can see its reflection in the pic below but I was actually shooting his "Go Around" message in the rear window. :)

I had the opportunity to talk a while with Matt Kelly from NextGearGreen.com. He noticed my Lincvolt shirt and we chatted a bit about the car. (Note to Mr Shakey, Matt is based in LA, and very interested in Lincvolt. He'd love to talk with you.) So Matt was filming and I promised to post some of his work here. Follows is a segment he shot of Wayne Gerdes, talking about how he and his team were able to squeeze over 1400 miles out of a tank of fuel in the Ford Fusion Hybrid. That's 80+ MPG, folks! Wayne's presentation was great and I was very impressed with the Ford engineer who preceded him, telling us about the improvements to the car and Ford's commitment to making their vehicles more efficient. He pointed out that in the past, an engineer needed to present a 10% improvement get get anyone's attention at the top. Now they're looking at all the 1 percent ideas. That's progress! I was signed up to test drive the new Fusion Hybrid but it didn't work out so I'll be visiting my dealer. They've really made some nice MPG improvements on this model. Because of this presentation, Ford has my attention. Their new regenerative braking is so efficient, you're seldom even getting into the brake pads. Thanks Ford, for your presence and support of HybridFest, for listening, and for your commitment to making more efficient vehicles! Heeeere's Wayne...

Here's another clip from Matt Kelly, talking with Fords Hybrid Team leader Praveen Cherian about their new improvements. I was really impressed with Mr. Cherian. Matt provides some excellent documentation and links here. Great reporting, Matt!

In the event you were in Madison and are trying to put a name with a face or a website with a car, this is my Insight.

More on HybridFest to come...