Toyota iQ ecodriving and hypermiling...
I've spent 22 hours over the past two days with my friend and colleague Simon Handby in the new Toyota iQ seeing how far it's possible to drive on one tank of fuel for the official Toyota iQ UK blog. As part of the challenge we wanted to beat the manufacturer's stated 65.7 mpg by visiting 18 cities and covering 500 or more miles. Given the iQ has a tiny 32 litre tank (the average car's is more like 45 or even 55 litres) the range based on the given figures should be 460 miles.
On Brighton seafront
I thought it would be pretty easily to achieve with careful driving which, although billed as such, wasn't exactly ecodriving or hypermiling. I'd prefer to call it careful driving as conserving fuel is really about anticipating how the driving situation is about to change and altering your behaviour ahead of time. In fact, if anything, this was a real world test as we took no extraordinary measures to set up the car differently (apart from increasing the air pressure in the tyres 2 psi over recommended) and were carrying two people and luggage. It rapidly beacame apparent that on Britain's busy roads techniques to minimise stop start driving were nigh on impossible, especially as we were driving right into the centre of each city we were visiting to take photos of the iQ by a landmark. We achieved our best fuel economy out on the motorway, but were travelling at a slightly higher speed than perhaps would have been most efficient as we were conscious of ensuring our own safety and that of other drivers by maintaining pace with the dense traffic around us.
Outside Wales Millenium Centre
The car was pretty much entirely dry after 504 miles, just as we were leaving Oxford in heavy traffic. We managed to complete the challenge we'd set ourselves and I did learn from it:
- 45 to 50 mph on a long journey feels excruciatingly slow
- You need a different mindset towards driving to accomodate this and...
- ... to accomodate other drivers behaviour
- The quality of the road surface is key; gritted roads are horrible to drive on
- Anything other than smooth tarmac causes increased rolling resistance
As to the car itself I was really surprised as to how much I grew to like it. It feels no different to a medium-sized car to sit inside or to drive. It's short length does more than make it easy to park, it feels nimble and, if necessary, can more than keep up with motorway traffic. This last point is important as once out of the city and on a long journey you want to feel both comfortable and safe.
Our final mileage
My specific criticisms from the perspective of the test were that the readout that told you how many miles you were getting to the gallon stopped at 60 mpg which is idiotic for a car rated at 65.7 mpg or higher. Perhaps we were doing something incorrectly. I really want to see a manufacturer take the issue of driver behaviour seriously by making relevant data clearly available. This article on Wired talks about precisely this issue: Next-Gen Dashboards Teach Leadfoots How to Hypermile.
Update: the challenge has been featured on Wired.com's Autopia blog! There's a photo of me fueling the car after we ran out of petrol in Oxford.
Update: the story has now appeared on Treehugger. A cleaner and less fraught me is lurking behind the car in the photo taken outside the Palace Pier on Brighton seafront at the start of the journey.
Update: ... and now on The New York Times blog Wheels too.
