By Keith Hebert, Fuel Efficiency Analyst

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It was four years ago today, that my quest to beat 100 mpg in my diesel smart car was realized. It was on a 393 km segment between Birch Hills and Yorkton, SK that I achieved 113 mpg imperial. The total for the day (over 400 miles) was 103 mpg imperial. And this, from a car with a conventional internal combustion engine that you could get in Canada, but not the United States. (This is a topic for another story, later.) I went on to achieve better than 100 mpg on 5 tanks during the trip, all without any gimmicks or modifications to the vehicle. At the time, I didn’t even have the benefit of any fuel consumption instrumentation, a Scangauge would have been pretty handy!

In 2006, still on the quest to beat 100 mpg US, and test how the smart performed on biodiesel, I headed back out to Saskatchewan. Through various trials and tests, I was able to yield 126 mpg imperial / 105 mpg US on a B20 blend of biodiesel. You can read about that here and here.

Then in 2007, another diesel smart car owner proved that 100 mpg could be beat on a full tank of greater than 600 miles. The hypermiling owner from Quebec achieved 2.238 L/100 km, which is 126 mpg imperial or 105 mpg US through clever use of a hand operated throttle mechanism, which allowed a very precise acceleration of the vehicle. The owner also utilized a ScanGauge fuel economy computer to get precise readouts of engine load and fuel consumption.

Besides the smart car, various Toyota Prius and Honda Insight (2000-2006 model) owners have shown capability of achieving better than 100 mpg. Many of those hybrid vehicle owners reside at cleanmpg.com. There is also ecomodder.com, a site dedicated to exploring vehicle modifications which yield better mileage.

100 mpg from a vehicle is quite possible, but it does take some driver willingness and a bit of an eco conscience. The reality is this - your right foot and your ego has the most to do with how much fuel your chosen vehicle burns. Even a Toyota Prius or Honda Civic hybrid is no guarantee of fuel savings if you don’t put a bit of effort into it. Or as one hypermiler put it: ‘fanatic’ is what the lazy call the dedicated.

Read more in my previous article: Hypermiling for better fuel economy.