I don’t know who is familiar with hypermiling, but I have been trying it lately.  It basically consists of varying your driving characteristics to try to get better mileage from your normal car; the guy who runs the site linked to above gets 50mpg with a regular Honda Accord, though he is a bit of a nut who takes corners full speed (braking wastes kinetic energy!) and who shuts his car completely OFF when he wants to coast for a while.

I don’t take it THAT seriously, but I have been more aware of trying to time lights so I don’t have to stop and start, shifting into neutral and coasting when appropriate and accelerating more slowly when driving in town (he suggests slowly accelerating to 25MPH and then enabling the cruise control and accelerating using the cruise “increase speed” button which accelerates in small increments.  Here are some results, keeping in mind that I can normally get over 30mpg on the highway but overall was averaging 19mpg between highway and city:

TWENTY NINE miles per gallon in my 2007 Acura TL with a 258-HP V6 engine?  Not bad!  This tank DID have a lot of highway driving, but my overall average gas been between 25 and 26 mpg for the last thousand miles, which represents over a 25% INCREASE by driving technique alone.

Who needs a Prius?  And what are they going to do with all those used up batteries?