EMISSIONS:Can you get the best out of your car while getting the best out of yourself at the same time?, asks KILIAN DOYLE
THERE IS a great advert doing the rounds at the moment for one of those tiny little city boxes masquerading as cars.
It purports to be a refresher course on how to fill up with fuel, the premise being that the car – which the manufacturer claims can do over 70mpg – is so camelesque in its thirst you’ll have forgotten how to use a petrol pump in the time it takes the tank to empty.
(It fails to warn the motorist not to inhale the fumes, which would make your memory even more goldfish-like. But that’s a minor quibble.)
The ad is symbolic of how performance has taken a back seat to economy.
Being easily swayed, this rush towards frugality was a major factor in my decision to replace my beloved old BMW petrol estate with a fancy new-ish diesel version. This transition has enabled me to deeply immerse myself in the dark art of hypermiling.
Driving a German car as I do, I prefer the term übermiling. It sounds more imposing and less frantic, wouldn’t you agree?
For frantic is the last thing you want to be while übermiling. Smoothness, anticipation, self-control and adept pedal-juggling are vital in the pursuit of squeezing every last drop of fuel efficiency from one’s engine.
There’s no great mystery to it. Accelerate as slowly as a three-legged mule dragging a bungalow, coast down hills and crawl up them. Keep the revs low, corner at speeds a bullet train would be proud of and regard the brake pedal with suspicion, as if it’s going to give you an electric shock if you use it unnecessarily.
Obsessive chap that I am, I’ve constantly got one eye on the fuel economy gauge and the other on the readout telling me how much further I’ve got before needing to refuel. So deranged have I become that I’ve convinced myself that, because this latter figure rises in direct correlation to my driving style, I’m actually creating fuel rather than using it when my übermiling skills are firing on all cylinders. As you can imagine, maths, physics and reality have never been my strongest subjects.
Without wishing to blow my own horn too much, I’ve become quite adept at übermiling. But there are three factors preventing me from achieving greater prowess.
First, I’m loath to engage in some of the more reckless pursuits favoured by hard-core übermilers. Drafting behind trucks and stripping out everything but the pedals, gearstick and steering wheel are a step too far.
The second speedbump on my road to fuel nirvana is that proper übermiling requires ridiculous levels of concentration, a major issue for someone with the attention span of a pigeon on LSD.
And the third? I suffer horribly from turbo-lust. There’s nothing I like better than switching off the traction control, dropping a gear, giving it socks and feeling the rear wheels skip about like Michael Flatley on a barbecue.
As a result, the best I can manage is 44mpg – shamefully short of the 47.2mpg BMW claims my car will do.
That said, I’m inclined to treat manufacturers’ claims on fuel efficiency with the same unhealthy scepticism I treat everything else. Unless they test their cars by pushing them off the side of a cliff, they must have the brains of a surgeon and feet of a ballet dancer to achieve such figures. I, on the other hand, have the brain of an addled lunatic and the feet of a goose.
Despite my limitations, I’m using about 40 per cent less fuel than I did in my previous car. Which – like petrol fumes – is not to be sniffed at. If my arms weren’t so cramped from my white-knuckled übermiling, I’d pat myself on the back.