Beat the petrol price hike! Could hypermiling be the answer to soaring fuel costs?

theguardian.com:

Kevin Booker fell into hypermiling. Or perhaps he coasted gently downhill into it, hypermiling being the art of driving in a way to maximise fuel efficiency. Anyway, he’s an accidental hypermiler; it started as something to relieve the boredom of the daily 70-mile commute, from Swansea to Brecon, where he works for National Parks. “It was almost a way to gamify it, to get the fuel I was using to go further,” the 44-year-old tells me. “I was learning the techniques to get the most out of that gallon.” We’ll come to the techniques.

It was a useful game. “The bonus was I was saving money. Over a month, I could save up to £50 without really increasing my journey time.” This was back in 2003, when a litre of petrol or diesel (Booker drove a diesel Vauxhall Corsa in those days) cost less than a pound.

You know what’s happened to fuel prices since, and recently they have put their right foot to the floor to go up the steepest of hills. Even with Rishi Sunak’s 5p duty cut last week, you’re still looking at about £1.60 for unleaded and more than £1.70 for diesel. I had my first £80 forecourt shock the other day. Used Skoda Fabia, since you ask – I know, nice wheels, right?

But back to Booker’s own hypermiling journey: after finding out he was good at it, Booker came across an advert in a car magazine for an event called the MPG Marathon, a test of fuel economy under on-road conditions. With his wife Terri’s encouragement, he entered. “It was around rural Essex, they give you a time you have to complete the course in, so you’re not going too slow and causing obstructions. They don’t want you going down the motorway at 25mph.”

Driving a diesel Honda Civic (“In those days you could get 100 miles to the gallon from a carefully driven