Can a Hummer H2 get better mileage than a Mini?
The different classifications of idiots on American roads are as countless as Mini Cooper options, Mustang special editions, or the list of ways you might die — which, ironically, includes idiot drivers. Among our favorites are the guy we once saw playing a trumpet while driving, but that was before hypermiling came on the scene.
Hypermiling, of course, is the practice of being a self-centered, traffic-jamming prick. It also supposedly saves gas. We'll address the techniques later on, as there are many. Most hypermilers start with a vehicle that's already efficient, like a Toyota Prius or a Honda Insight, and the most dedicated members of this cult have claimed EPA-shattering numbers of over 100 mpg. Most say they see an improvement of 30 to 40 percent over the figures published for their cars.
We at Motive are firm believers in going big or going home. If two main effects of hypermiling are the naked aggression one inspires other drivers and a high-percentage economy increase, why not start with a vehicle everyone hates already — and more importantly, one for which a single mile-per-gallon increase represents a ten percent improvement? Yes, the Hummer H2 is a hypermiler's dream. Plus, with $4.50-per-gallon fuel, suffering dealers will practically give you one.
We secured a special-edition "Ultra Marine" H2 for a week to see what gains we could get by faithfully following the hypermiling bible. But that's only half the story, because we had more questions — questions such as, "Will a big truck driven efficiently deliver better mpg than a small car with a leadfoot at the helm?" That's where the new Mini Cooper Clubman comes in.
For a fair comparison, we have set up a test course that starts at a gas station near Wrigley Field on Chicago's north side, winds through the gridlock of downtown, then shoots out Interstate 290 toward the southwest suburb of Naperville. The 40-mile loop ends with five miles of suburban byways leading back to Motive HQ. We will start with full tanks and refill at the end, calculate the averages, and see if we can't get the Mini to chug more fuel than the Hummer, counting middle fingers along the way.
The Hummer isn't fit to win this battle in its current condition. I browse its options list but instead of prices I see weights. Limited Edition Package: 300 pounds; Luxury Package: 200 pounds; Chromey-Chrome Chrome Package: 200 pounds. I don't need the Ultra Marine Edition, I need a Colin Chapman Edition. (Squint hard enough and the Hummer's green paint almost looks like BRG!) So I get to work leveling the playing field, pulling off extraneous bits and weighing them as I go. Drawing the line at things I'd surely break in the process of removing, I shave the following off the H2:
* Rear-mounted Spare Wheel/Tire: 102 pounds
* Spare Tire Carrier Frame: 97 pounds
* Two Third-Row Seats: 90 pounds
* Two Chrome Step Bars: 34 pounds
* Tools, Floormats, and Nuts/Bolts: 24 pounds
While the combined avoirdupois still wouldn't be enough to drop the 6600-pound Hummer into a testable EPA weight class, 347 pounds is nothing to sneeze at. Happy with my hack job, I hit the evening commute with confidence but am saddened when I arrive home, 22 miles later, with the dash readout telling me I've achieved just 10.2 mpg. "It's alright," I tell myself, "tomorrow is a new day."
Despite what the rising sun tells me, tomorrow is not a new day. I arrive at the starting line of my test route and hop out, still sipping on my morning coffee. "That thing sure is big," the BP station attendant tells me, disrupting the chanting of my mantra ("My foot is a feather... My foot is a feather..."). I want to scream "Thank you, Captain Obvious!" and toss my Starbucks in his face, but I resist. He continues.
"What's it cost to fill that up?"
"I don't know... it isn't mine and I've never put gas in it," I tell him, trying to kill the conversation.
"So a man just gives you this thing and says you can drive it, just so long as you put gas back in it? Man, with that thing, I don't know if I'd take that deal." The pump clicks off. "Seventy-six dollars! Whew!"
The first fuel-cutting measure I lay on the thirsty Hummer is, other than simply being shy with the throttle, the simplest — coasting in neutral whenever possible. This is the first step of a hypermiling technique called a forced autostop (FAS). That name comes from a hybrid's ability to turn its gas engine off in some situations ("autostop"), only here the driver kills the engine by keying back to the accessories position, hence the "forced." No running engine means no gas flow, which means infinite fuel economy any time the car's rolling under a FAS. That's, like, totally high, even by Prius standards. I'm able to execute a few complete FASs along the way, but a few factors are getting in my way.
The first is that Chicago's traffic system has all the rhythm and logic of an 11-year-old kid learning to play the drums. As such, I can't time my engine kills early enough to be worth pumping the juice to resuscitate the 6.2-liter gorilla V-8 under the hood. The few times I do kill it, having to wield over three tons of truck without power steering or power brakes makes me a little less eager to try it again. This move is illegal in a small car, and downright homicidal in an H2.
Further down the road, I don't even try hypermiling's holy grail of combining a forced autostop with pulse and glide. Pulse and glide is the practice of going faster than you intend to ("pulse"), only to coast along saving fuel until your speed's fallen too low ("glide"). For example, if I want to drive the H2 at an average speed of 50 mph, I'd instead bring it gently up to 60 mph and coast back down to 40 mph, then repeat. Only by the time I drop the Hummer's oversized shifter into neutral and grab the key to kill the engine, I'm already back down to 45 mph. The lower rolling resistance of my heightened tire pressures — 50 psi at all corners — should help, but then again, I'm riding on 305/60R20 Goodyear Wranglers. Plus, I'm wary of killing the Hummer at 60 mph — my earlier experiences without power steering already inspired a stop at a church to make sure the Big Guy and I are on good terms.
Back in the city, I'm battling with an average-fuel-economy readout that really wants to drop below 13.0 for the first time in the five miles I've covered, and the guy in the 5-series behind me is motioning with one finger that he wants me to throw in the towel. He uses a turn lane to cut around me, his engine bouncing off the limiter. Does the gas he just wasted count against my average?
In a perfect world I'd be "driving with load," or trying to stay locked into one mpg number, but the H2 doesn't have an instantaneous-economy readout. So instead I'm driving by ear. The Hummer sounds like an offshore race boat — I've set the radio to just the right level so that if I can hear the engine, I'm driving too hard. That level is, by my estimate, about 1/10th throttle. And most of the time it's effective. But occasionally, I barely miss a light and wonder if I'm really saving more gas than someone driving at a normal pace who would've made those lights and, as a result, would be spending less time in the H2 overall.
By the time I break free of the city on I-290, I've developed a deep self-hatred that even my rising fuel economy can't cure. Moving at an embarrassing 45 mph in the right lane, I've managed to turn myself into a distasteful amalgam of a big-SUV driver and smug, economy-obsessed asswipe, simultaneously joining two gangs I never thought I'd run with. I may as well just plow myself into the back of the 18-wheeler I've been drafting for the past two miles. (Just think of the gas I'd save if I were hanging off of his rear end!) Still, I remain focused on my mission. Having ruled out forced autostops, there's little I can do on the highway to minimize my fuel usage. Chicago's skyscrapers exist as an aesthetic compensation for its lack of hills, so there's no opportunity to ask gravity for a hand. Large trucks are the only things worth drafting and three of those have already brake-checked me. I set the cruise at 50 mph and hope for the best.
Three miles from the finish line I've quit the brake pedal cold turkey. Stop signs mean less than my precious average, which the H2 says is sitting at 17.2 mpg. A few hills finally come along and a few neutral coasts push me over the speed limit for the first time, hoping to make it up the inclines without forcing the fuel pump back into service. It mostly works, but not well enough. By the time I roll into our office's favorite Shell, I've dropped to 17.1. At first I'm disappointed that I hadn't pushed the colossal beast past 20. I wanted to saunter up to Motive headquarters in my figurative spurs and cowboy hat, dragging a hog-tied Hummer behind me. "Boys, I've conquered the beast. Your town is safe," I'd declare over a long pull of Jim Beam before being carried off victoriously by a gang of Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. But 17.1? That doesn't exactly scream hero. Which is why I'm even more disappointed when I do a quick pumpside calculation. Over 39.9 miles the Hummer drank 2.713 gallons, meaning the trip computer is extra lenient: The real average was just 14.71 miles for each gallon of dino juice.
Still, our week with the H2 saw averages that danced between 8-12 indicated mpg. If normal drivers are getting around 10 mpg for combined city/highway trips (as mentioned above, the EPA doesn't quote numbers for beasts this big), that 14.71 is an improvement of almost 50 percent, even if the actual return is just five extra miles per gallon. But are those gains worth what I, and the people behind me, just went through? Personally, I think the effort and risk I would've avoided is worth more than the few bucks I saved, even if I did reduce the geopolitical importance of Kuwait.
The next morning I brew my coffee extra strong before saddling up for round two. With a manual-equipped Mini Cooper Clubman, I'm confident that the 1.6-liter four under the hood can be pushed to Hummer-beating inefficiency. I've even got a bit of the Hummer along for the ride with me — it wouldn't be fair to strip weight off the big truck and then leave the Mini stock, so I've crammed in as many H2 parts as the Clubman's rear will hold. That equates to two rear seats and one massive wheel/tire combo that hardly fits but is just too heavy and comical to leave behind. In all, the Clubman's carrying an extra 192 pounds. It's also wet and rainy in Chicago, which should be good for wheelspin without forward progress. Time to see how conspicuous a Mini's consumption can be.
My friend at the BP doesn't even notice me today, so I bid farewell by laying a strip of rubber out onto Addison Street. My tactics will be to reverse everything I tried yesterday, except that I'll continue to use neutral. Only this time, dropping the transmission out of gear will allow me to rev the engine any time traffic isn't letting me to do so under load. I'm holding every gear to 6000 rpm and dropping down a cog as soon as it's possible. Every moving piece of the car hates me, but every little bit counts. From Wrigley Field to downtown, I'm averaging a guzzler-ific 13.2 mpg.
What's better, I don't feel as guilty as I did in the Hummer, despite the fact that my technique would give an EPA agent a heart attack. By turning the throttle into a light switch and passing slower drivers in turn lanes, I'm doing nothing more than getting out of the way of everyone else. By blocking traffic with the Hummer I was ruining the mornings of countless city drivers. Maybe someone was fired because I made him late, and maybe that man's boss had a short fuse that ran out when he got stuck behind some ass driving a Hummer at half the posted limit. The anger channeled toward the Hummer was exponential: Everyone hated both the truck itself and the way it was being driven. I'm driving the Mini like Ed Norton's chasing me in a helicopter and the only person who notices is the guy in the GTI who tries to race me around the curve on Upper Wacker.
Again, the freeway is getting in the way of my success. But unlike yesterday, I can't do anything to keep the Mini chugging. My ears are buzzing with the vibrations of an engine spinning a constant 6000 rpm, the smelly air outside is whipping in through the open windows, and my feet are going numb from the air conditioning. I've had more relaxing experiences on a Jet Ski. And it's all for naught, because the little orange readout below the tach keeps climbing, and my average now breaking past the 20.0 mpg mark. Nothing is going to change it — the Mini's just too efficient on the highway. Even stuck in thick traffic, my evening commute later in the day would return an average of over 32 mpg.
Exiting the highway has never felt so good, so I celebrate by bouncing off the rev limiter through the off-ramp. Then it's time to cheat a little. Instead of taking the main roads to the finish line, I opt to weave the Mini through residential streets loaded with stop signs and angry mothers. My average is dropping and for the first time today I feel like people really despise my Cooper and me. But neither effort is enough — the gas station greets me with a 21.4 mpg average and a "cool car" comment from Mr. Accord at the next pump. The Mini's calculator is wrong, though. My math says I've only averaged 19.0 mpg. Not low enough to make a Hummer feel special, but close.
So what have I learned, other than the fact that manufacturers tune their trip computers to be extra generous? Well, that it's hard to make people hate you in a Mini, but it is even harder to make them like you in a Hummer. Drive a Mini hard and people will just smile, excepting of course the suburban housemoms who'll yell at anything that looks or sounds fast. But tread lightly with a Hummer and people won't be commending your effort. They'll honk, scream, flail, and flash lights, then buzz past with enough fuel-burning rage to cancel out the H2's savings. I also learned that the only way a Cooper will ever burn more gas than Hummer is if the Mini's driven hard through city streets while the H2 cruises at 50 mph on an Interstate. And that isn't a fair comparison.Of the two driving techniques, hypermiling is arguably the more sinful. Driving fast, while still dangerous, fuel-swilling, and illegal, doesn't impact other drivers (so long as you don't hit them). We'd dare to call it the selfless act of getting away from everyone else's commute. Hypermiling impacts entire packs of cars and probably causes more community-wide fuel consumption than it saves for one person, plus people hate you for getting in their way. Especially when you're doing it in one of the country's largest passenger vehicles.
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