Hypermiling as a business opportunity?
 

Given the severe stress many people are under thanks to poor vehicle efficiency, high gas prices and long commutes I'm wondering if anyone has considered trying coaching wannabe hypermilers in proper driving techniques as a business opportunity?

How would you reach potential customers?

How would you convince them that your services could meet a need of theirs?

Can anyone think of potential downsides?

it is so funny that you said something about this. my wife was poking fun at me in her workplace and said something about me working on my gas mileage. the funny thing was that her boss (director over the program) asked if I would be willing to do a workshop on it. at her workplace, they routinely do some sort of workshop for team building activities. I didn't take them up on it because of the shortcomings of some of the things I do.

I don't want to be liable for some woman whose car has overheated trying to get better gas mileage or has damaged her vehicle by cutting off the engine and her transmission melts out of her minivan because they didn't do their research first to see if it would work for their vehicle. I could see a lot of shortcomings to trying to do something like that.

if someone were interested in doing something like that, they would have to pull up specs on most cars so that they could say that each individuals car could or could not do certain things. I think the difficulty would be in the detail. you would have to be prepared for all the questions and have a huge disclaimer for such a program.

I also have a hard time charging people for advice and I know that people do it all the time.

*edit* the poking fun stopped when she told them I was getting 10MPG over EPA.

I was thinking of something along the lines of a two hour session in the customer's own car with something like a scangauge.. Let them drive say a ten mile loop while recording the average mileage then you do it with basic hypermiling techniques.. If the customer is sufficiently impressed with the demo then you go ahead and give them the course for say $50 or whatever.

I wouldn't encourage anyone to do anything that might hurt their vehicle, like EOC, I'm not convinced the potential benefits of turning the engine off to save idle fuel is worth the possible risks involved.

Aerodynamic mods might be another opportunity, particularly if you have instrumentation that can determine relative drag easily and quickly (something like a USB accelerometer).. Air dam, virtual boattail and so on.

Oh, and (over) charging people for (often bad) advice is exactly what "consultants" do all the time..

I tend to give advice as a "favor" that may some day be repaid and maybe not. I talked one guy into getting a scangauge. I need an extra cable for mine so he may order me one. I intend to pay him for it but it will save me on shipping. also, another guy saw my WAI and wanted to put one on his car to get better FE.

I find that if you charge someone for something (a set amount) they tend to want more from you or want you to fix every little thing about it. the first guy with the scangauge, his vehicle was throwing a code. I plugged up the scangauge and reset it. he got back some power and it ran good for a week or so. now it is throwing a code again. not sure if it is the same one as my cable is routed through my car pretty good and I don't want to take it out again. if I had charged him to read the code, he may have expected me to re-read the code for him. also, it was on him to find out what the code meant as well.

That's why I'll never touch other peoples cars or computers... change their plugs and it's your fault their brakes squeal, install a virus checker and it's your fault their PSU dies...

another reason that I tend to only help out friends that I know. very rarely do I move outside of my circle and help others.

very VERY good point.

I made my living for many years by "fixing the unfixable", I've always done better in times of economic downturn because that's when people fix stuff rather than just buying another one.

The thing is people don't appreciate that which they do not pay for. I've seen it time and time again that when I give "free" advice people ignore what I say.. If I charge them $50 an hour on the other hand, they listen very carefully..

After a while it finally dawned on me that people used my services more when I charged more.. People have a hard time judging the quality of many things and a lot of folks just figure that the more expensive something is the higher the quality.

Who am I to shatter their illusions?

...he could go to Auto Zone and let them read the code, though they might not be willing to reset it. Instant gratification while he's waiting for his ScanGauge.

I gave 2 hour presentation on fuel economy a few weeks back for my office. People in my agency have been emailing my powerpoint all across the country. Maybe I should have charged!:p

I'd love to see that ppt (for free of course).

send it to my wife so she knows that I am not the only one out there that cares.

holycow, I think he doesn't care that much. before he found out that I had a reader (scangauge) the light had been on for about 2 months or so. He says his power is still there so resetting it still did some good.

Timing is everything!
 

This is a timly thread to me. When gasoline was $1.00, I was driving a 1973 Buick LeSabre and getting 21mpg instead of 16 highway just off driving technique, but no one else cared. I was just a weird guy who's car always stalled at the lights (I shut it off, and it was a pretty loud car, so everyone knew when those first 2 over-rich cylinders fired!)
Today, people are listening when I say I am working on 40mpg from my minivan.
People told me I'd never get 23mpg from my Lincoln Mark 5 (460 V8 and 4600lbs). I did, and I was the only one who seemed to car. Gas was $1.75 at the time.
Today, when people see my business card, which says I am working on 40mpg, they say "Oh, cool. Can you do it?" I say "Without a doubt I can. Check the site every now and then and see how I'm doing"

It's all about timing. At $4.24 a gallon, people will try some pretty silly stuff if they think it will work. I just have to find and prove what does, and doesn't, and I am really confident they will come to me and buy what I get results from.
So yeah, I am using the gas prices, hypermileing (tho I still have much to learn) and my experience as a mechanic, machinist, and naval engineer to build a business.

I'd be glad to send it. Keep in mind it's real basic info. My presentation was 2 hrs, not my ppt! But for some reason, though, it hit everyone as new and unheard of advice. Did I mention I work for a federal agency?:p

bkrell,

sending you a PM

thanks in advance

Any chance you could post the powerpoint somewhere for everyone? I'd like to see it too. :)

Me too. Maybe you could just copy and paste the Power Point outline into a post -unless you have lots of cool pics and multimedia- then you'd need to post the whole file :-)

Now I can't possibly show it b/c it's been built up too much. It was just some basic fuel saving tips, the EPA's list of top fuel efficient cars by size class, plus links to fuel economy.gov, gasbuddy.com, and a video by Autoweek showing how driving style affected mpg in identical cars.

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/FEG/video...small_wide.wmv

That was my surprise, that this basic stuff was stuff folks either didn't know or had forgotten.

That's why we want to see it...I doubt anyone here is expecting to learn something new about saving gas from it, but I am interested in effective ways to present it to non-hypermilers.

My wife's big boss (guy is in charge of maybe 100 or so people) was joking at me when he said, "Hey, I heard you're a hypermiler" I was surprised he knew the term. Asked him how he knew and my wife had mentioned how fanatical I am about mileage.

He had heard Hypermiler on CNN though.

The wife has mentioned I should teach people how to be efficient with their vehicles. I've plugged the Scangauge into a few peoples cars and showed them their driving style versus mine and the increase I get....it opened their eyes. (AND sold a few Scangauges too)

My boss mentioned that I should talk at the next company meeting about hypermiling also. Hmmmmm, I'm noting a trend here.

As I mentioned on another thread, the great majority of Americans are not car enthusiasts and have not a clue how a car really works..

Knowledge is power and we here are developing knowledge that will only become more powerful as the price of gas increases.

Wazabi Owner's comment about selling scangauges through a short demonstration is telling..

How about "Scangauge parties", kind of like "Tupperware parties"?

Yeah that's what has held me back is the liability...

Like Engine Off coasting, I can see folks getting in a collision because they failed to properly manhandle the steering wheel or maybe they failed to realize they couldn't pump the brakes without total loss... Or they took a turn too fast or suffered from heatstroke due to closed windows and not using a/c or any some such bs.

If it wasn't for things like that this crap would've been out there like wildfire by now.

That's a great idea! Scangauges aren't that hard a sell on gearheads b/c the offer such a broad spectrum of monitoring PLUS a code scanner. I've been telling everyone I know about my scangauge. My family thought I was nuts until I just happened to have them all sitting in my living room this Memorial day when Fox News Channel ran a story on the Scangauge! They were amazed!