If you love driving, care about the environment and are slightly nuts, then hypermiling is your new hobby. Drivers compete to get the most mileage (like 1,400 miles) from a tank of petrol, and swap tips on numerous websites.

The basics: Use your brakes rarely and slow down gradually at lights (ignore honking drivers behind you). Start gradually away from lights (ditto). Never drive above 55mph (ditto).

For more advanced drivers: When approaching a motorway turn-off, drop into neutral, turn off your engine, take the turn at 50mph and freewheel home. This will save petrol, but could kill you.

Keeping cool: You can’t turn on the air conditioning or open the windows (it makes the car less aerodynamic). Champion hypermiler Wayne Gerdes keeps cool by wearing an ice vest he borrows from his day job at a nuclear power plant.

Keeping track: Hypermilers keep an eye on their MPG display. At HybridFest 2007 in July, Bill Kinney from Seattle got 168mpg in a Honda Insight hybrid car.

Learn more:

Hypermiling.com has lots of basic tips (and t-shirts for sale)

CleanMPG is a community site with forums and in-depth, graph-filled guides to advanced techniques

Video reports from Hybridfest 2007

How to ride 'traffic waves' (For advanced users only!)

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