To Ed T., Yes there are a lot of things that one can do to increase gas mileage. The reason you got better gas mileage is because at a certain speed, wind resistance begins to increase exponentially.

Also, I’d be careful about these exhuberent gas mileages some people report. One guy put in a battery in his car that he would charge up at home and gas would kick in after the battery died and he would report a really high number and would claim his car can get x number of miles per gallon which is such a farse.

Where do you think the energy to charge up the battery came from? Well about 40% of it most likely came from burning fossil fuels. Here’s the thing though, when the electric company burns fossil fuels to create energy at least 50% of the energy is lost as heat.

In short, your car has to run purely on gas for you to be able to make a claim that your car gets x miles to the gallon, if not at least put a disclaimer because otherwise its just a lie.

On my most recent trip to Louisiana, I tried a little experiment. On the way down, I drove the speed limit. On the way back, I drove 5 mph under (65 in the 70 zones, 60 in the 65 mph zones). I got about a 10% increase in gas mileage (about a 20% increase over driving “with the traffic”.)

And, it was a lot less stressful.

Moral of the story: even those of us who don’t drive hybrids can do things to make the gallons of gas go farther.

~EdT.