How do you minimise fuelconsumption while driving on congested roads ?

Question

How do you minimise fuelconsumption while driving on congested roads ?

Answer 1

First off, I just want to clear any thoughts about a new car from your head. Unless you drive a big gas guzzler. Its not the car you drive, its how you drive. To answer your question, my first thought is coast. Always look ahead down the road. If you see brakes a few cars up, there's no reason to gas it. Just coast up. Even if the guy in his raised 95 ranger behind you is flipping out, h**l get there the at the same time, just using a lot less gas. Avoid taking it out of gear. not good for the car. Also, when i accelerate from a light, i try to keep the RPMs under 2k. Its helped substantially increase my mileage. My cheapy caliber is rated at 26 city and 30 highway, and ive been achieving over 34 mpg city since gas hit 4 bucks.

Answer 2

"Go Wings" says it well.  The idea is don't do stuff that takes a lot of energy.  Generally that would be hitting the gas, but think about it - hitting the brake means you previously hit the gas too hard.  "Drive as if you have no brakes" is a hypermiler's credo.

The farther ahead you can look and think, the more you can "smooth out" your driving.  Tests have shown that actually smoothes out the surges in traffic behind you, too.

Hybrids are ideal for that type of driving condition, because the engine will just shut off 90% of the time.  Surging traffic is the ultimate "pulse and glide" (another hypermiler thing that mainly works on hybrids).

Also, turn off your high-power accessories, by which I mainly mean air conditioning.  At low speeds it doesn't hurt to roll your windows down (at high speeds the aerodynamic drag can be quite severe).  

A lot of mainstream media says windows down is worse than A/C, but the fact is, they're both bad.  Best is windows up A/C off, vent fan on high.  They never talk about that option, wonder why?