'Hypermilers' say you can save 30% on gas with basic tweaks — or you can go deeper and start driving on painted lines

While you might not be ready to strip your vehicle’s interior door panels to reduce its weight, many of the hypermilers’ hacks can be adopted easily — and it could add up to big savings, especially amid the gas price crunch.

High gas prices persist

After the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February, the conflict had an immediate impact on oil prices due to reduced supplies coming from the Persian Gulf. In March, the International Energy Agency said the situation was “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.”

The price shock at the pumps saw the national average price of gas soar above $4.50 a gallon in May. (On Feb. 28, the day the conflict began, the national average was sitting at $2.98 a gallon.) Although average prices eased below $4 a gallon in June, they were back above $4 in July and have remained above that mark ever since.

As of writing, tracking of the national average by NBC, based on data from AAA, puts the price change since the war began at +$1.16 a gallon, an increase of 39.2%.

How to hypermile

Hypermiling isn’t new, but the practice of driving and maintaining your vehicle in ways that maximize mileage may be more appealing than ever with prices almost 40% higher than the start of the year.

One of the cornerstones of hypermiling is changing the way you drive; hypermilers aim not to hit the accelerator or the brakes too hard. They instead employ a method of smoother driving, including gently hitting the gas pedal when they need to start moving.

Once they’re on the move, hypermilers are scanning far ahead to see whether there are red lights or brake lights coming up. They then aim to tap the brakes gently and slowly decelerate to a stop.

Hills can also be a hypermiler’s best friend — on the way down, anyway. Hypermilers will seek to park their vehicle in a spot that takes advantage of a downhill exit, or in a forward-facing spot that they can roll out of, according to a Denver Post report.

Bradlee Fons, a hypermiler who founded the nonprofit Drive Smart Wisconsin to spread the gospel of hypermiling, told the New York Times that hypermiling techniques can save you 30% or more on fuel costs. Fons also told the Times that his 2017 Toyota Prius has an E.P.A. rating of 52 miles per gallon, but that he regularly achieves 83.2 miles per gallon by using hypermiling techniques.

Other techniques he shared for saving fuel include “nonaggressive driving,” being thoughtful about trips and including multiple errands (because it means less fuel is used to warm up the vehicle) and making maintenance a priority.

Another hypermiler, Bob Winger from Williamsburg, Virginia, told the Times that “You don’t have to do crazy stuff.”