Global Warmer?
 

I suppose I should post a formal intro since I've been here a little over a week: My name is Kip and I'm a gasaholic.

Anyway, I used to be very into building cars for power and racing, but I've decided it just costs too much and we don't really have room for the race cars anyway. Now I've started to go the other direction with performance by attempting to get the most bang out of my buck in efficiency.

So far, we traded in the WRX STi for a Ford Escape Hybrid 4WD, but that just wasn't good enough either and we have sold it too. Now I mostly commute by bus or bicycle every day while my wife uses the truck for the daily kid deliveries and errands. I honestly don't have a real need to drive at all as far as work is concerned. This slight compromise in convenience is no saving us roughly 8000 vehicle miles per year, and over $400 per month by not having an additional car payment and insurance. So driving a truck as our only vehicle saves us money! (We do actually haul things like dirt, lumber, and our boat with it.)

Regardless, hopefully we can improve our economy for the truck by a significant amount by doing some of the things that others have done here.

wow thats true love for hypermileing you gave up a sti for it. I respect that so much because i know i could never give one up. MY friend had one and the amount of fun we had with it was rediculus from smoking all 4 tires to doing 160 down the interstate.

Yeah, that was the other problem. I think both my wife and I were on borrowed time for our antics in the STi. I'd only gotten one speeding ticket, but my wife got nailed for speed racing (under completely BS circumstances that I personally witnessed). Believe it or not though, even the STi was a performance downgrade for us. Our car prior to that was just a recipe for disaster and fun in a much more visceral way. Neither car would ever see better than 25 mpg on a tank though. Most often if we got 15 mpg we were lucky, but apparently still having a bit too much fun. :D

No reason you can't do both. That's what electric cars are for!

www.plasmaboyracing.com

Well, "formally" welcome to the site Snax. Thumbs up on the decision to change the way you commute. Now I see why you're interested in the bugE.

Evo
 

Precisely why I decided to get rid of the Evo: busted all the time and it encouraged bad FE. 18 mpg was average. I used to mix Xylene with 87-octane gas to make a 100+ octane mix on the cheap -- best mileage on long trips with that mix -- about 23, but it also produced more power. There just wasn't a practical way to unleash it regularly...

RH77

Yeah, John's car is an excellent example of excess without fossil fuel.

We have embarked upon our own EV conversion of an 85 MR2, however I don't really have plans for it to be that extreme. Ok, not extreme at all really. We are aiming for getting perhaps as high as a 30 mile working range and topping out at 70 mph if we are lucky. Perhaps with some good aero work however, it may do 85 or more.