Word of the Year 2008: hypermiling

The New Oxford American Dictionary has selected the 2008 Word of the Year: hypermiling.

Hypermiling is doing everything possible to get the most mileage from your car. If you have a fuel-efficient vehicle (like the Honda Fit, pictured) or a hybrid, that's only the beginning. If you drive the speed limit, keep your car tuned up and keep your tires properly inflated, you're getting closer.

Hypermilers will go further, taking simple get increasingly obsessive measures: They'll drive without shoes to be more sensitive to the gas pedal. They'll remove roof racks to reduce drag. They'll coast down hills. They'll make sure they only park in spaces that they can exit by pulling forward, to avoid having to back up. (If this sounds a bit preposterous, NPR interviewed some hypermilers in June; listen for yourself.)

But hypermiling is not just for obsessive penny pinchers. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants you to be a hypermiler -- except he calls it an EcoDriver. Schwarzenegger, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Environmental Defense Fund launched a nationwide EcoDriving campaign earlier this year with a helpful how-to ecodrive website. Or maybe that should be how-to hypermile.

That's the problem with new words. "Hypermiling" has been around since 2004, but it's still got competitors in the name-the-trend marketplace. Maybe becoming the 2008 Word of the Year will put it over the top.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Honda

Comments

[cal godot]

So that's why hybrid drivers are such a menace! They are deliberately driving slow, not accelerating at green lights, coasting idly through intersections. And here I thought their engines were just week. It figures that selfish yuppies would figure out another way to be completely inconsiderate of others - all while pretending to be concerned with the world. The hybrid car is yet another cocoon for selfish over-privileged Americans.

[Gloria]

Check out the website, www.EcoDrivingUSA.com, and see a message from Gov. Schwarzenegger. Hypermiling is about maximizing mileage, but EcoDriving also focuses on reducing carbon dioxide emissions. In fact, you can take a quick test at www.EcoDrivingUSA.com to determine how much you can reduce carbon dioxide through driving and vehicle maintenance.

[Showbizk]

It is unbelievable the ignorance of people like cal godot. Hypermiling has nothing to do with hybrids. It's a method of driving any vehicle to get much improved fuel mileage, well over EPA estimates (usually by 20% and higher). Hypermiling does NOT promote ANY unsafe driving practices--not tailgating (drafting), not rolling through stop signs or red lights, not obstructing traffic--NONE of these. It does promote driving (in the right-hand lane) a bit below the posted limit. It does promote looking well ahead and anticipating stops by coasting more slowly to intersections, "coaxing" the light (as my dad used to say) to green before having to stop. It does promote giving MORE buffer space on freeways to allow more gentle acceleration and braking. It does promote certain aero and mechanical modifications to vehicles (removal of roof racks, engine block heaters, grill blocks, higher tire pressures) to improve fuel mileage.
Cal godot, the menace is represented by folks like yourself, who judge without investigating, who instantly disagree with any change to your own selfish habits, and who react instead of respond to articles such as this in a totally emotional, illogical, unreasonable diatribe unrelated to the issue.