Hymotion fuel economy updates

Here is the result of using my ScanGauge to keep track of my fuel economy on a daily basis for the past year:

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I have a standard Hymotion system with no grill-blocking or other modifications that would have a significant effect on fuel economy.

The data represents a full calendar year and a wide variety of driving conditions:
- highway driving and city driving
- flat terrain and big hills
- hot weather and very cold weather
- me driving, my wife driving, and her son driving
- me hypermiling and me driving "normally," whatever that means
- me playing tricks to keep the engine from coming on and me being too tired to bother playing tricks

However, the vast majority of the days involve driving up a big hill to get home. The only exceptions to that would have been days when my battery was depleted before I started up the hill.

The data only includes driving that occurred while the Hymotion system was turned on and still had energy in the battery.

On any days when the battery was fully depleted, I stopped collecting data (and wrote down the ScanGauge numbers) as soon as the Hymotion light went out.

The only place that I have ever charged my Hymotion battery is in my own driveway. (We don't have a garage.) However, on some days, I charged the battery with a second partial charge before going out again.

The number of miles driven per day, ranges from about 8 to 38, with the average being about 16.5 miles.

I corrected for systematic errors in the ScanGauge data. So, the numbers should be very close to reality.

I have data for 277 out of the last 365 days. Only 241 of those days are represented on the chart. For each of the other 36 days, my MPG was above 200.

Of the 36 "above 200 MPG" days, 23 of them are listed here:

210, 213, 234, 244, 245, 249, 249, 262, 262, 262, 264, 266, 286, 297, 301, 304, 320, 320, 322, 326, 340, 385, 703

For the remaining 13 days, I managed to avoid using any gas whatsoever.

If you're trying to decide whether to buy a Hymotion system, this data should give you a pretty good picture of the range of results that are possible.

Arthur

 

Yes, I track lots of stuff. I'll post more data soon.

Is my overall average MPG fairly high? Not really. Even though electricity is much cheaper per mile, there is still some cost associated with charging the car. When you factor that in, I pay the about same amount (for my combination of gas and electricity) that a person would pay if they had a standard gasoline car that got between 55 and 60 MPG.

So, the Hymotion battery won't ever pay for itself, not unless gas prices go up to several dollars per gallon and STAY there for a long time!

I still enjoy having the conversion. I spend less than $20/month, while my wife spends almost $100/month fueling her Highlander (hybrid). Of course, she does more driving than I do. So, that's part of the reason she spends more.

We're getting a PV system (solar panels) soon. It will make me very happy to be able to charge my car with solar energy. I know it's not going to save the world, but it's a step in the right direction.

Arthur