Philippines: Mirage G4 sedan economy run (winner: 33.6 km/L / 79 mpg US / 3 L/100km)

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January 16th, Mitsu PH hosted its first economy run using the Mirage G4 sedan using 10 cars: five manuals and five CVT's.

Route: 267 kilometers / 166 mi., from Manila to Baguio
Route type: mostly open highway, but also included some urban driving at the start, and some stop & go in a 5 km construction zone
Max. posted speed limit: 100 km/h / 62 mph
Weather conditions: hot (hey, it's the Philippines)
Rules: "Simple: drive within the recommended speed limit with air conditioning on."

Tactics: some teams clearly did more than set the cruise control at the speed limit...

• airing up the tires above the recommended levels
• shutting off the engine when stopped
• driving in the right lane below the posted speed limit
• it's implied that some teams coasted (and even physically pushed their car some) with the engine off

Results:

The average fuel economy of the manual cars (22.2 km/L = 52 mpg US = 4.5 L/100km) beat the average of the CVT cars (18.9 km/L = 45 mpg US = 5.3 L/100km). We've seen this before: Mirage CVT or 5-speed: which should you get for best gas mileage/fuel economy?

Even when you remove the extreme results from both averages, the two transmissions are essentially tied.

Apparently the Auto Review (TV show) team knows what they're doing: their Facebook page describes a number of other eco-run events that they've won (or nearly won): https://www.facebook.com/AutoREVIEWtv

Team	Results km/L MPG US L/100 km	Actual Trip (km)	Liters Loaded
Mirage 1.2 M/T
Auto Review	33.6 79.0 3.0	152.0	4.523
AutoIndustriya Philippine Star CarGuide.PH	28.5 67.0 3.5	148.8	5.229
Philippine Daily Inquirer	17.4 40.9 5.8	150.9	8.650
Business Mirror Time Attack Manila Power Wheels	17.1 40.2 5.9	151.4	8.877
Top Gear Philippines Business World	14.3 33.6 7.0	150.7	10.549
Mirage 1.2 CVT
Autocar Philippines Manila Standard Today	26.0 61.2 3.9	151.9	5.843
STV The Manila Times	17.7 41.6 5.7	150.6	8.532
The Manila Times Turbo Zone	17.5 41.2 5.7	151.5	8.665
C! Magazine	16.8 39.5 6.0	150.9	8.989
The Manila Bulletin	16.6 39.1 6.0	150.8	9.074

Read more: http://www.carguide.ph/2014/01/the-b...itsubishi.html

Also: http://motioncars.inquirer.net/24521...with-mirage-g4

79MPG is just pure amazing

Yup. It's impressive.

But nowhere close to "real world" driving. :) They'd be shutting the engine off at every single opportunity (while moving) to get those kinds of numbers! And the average speed would be pretty slow. I'm sure they got nowhere near the speed limit on the 100 km/h section, unless going downhill... with the engine off :D

That's "competition" eco-driving.

Still, very impressive.

I think lots of downhill indeed. My best was 3.7 and that's way less than the factory given numbers and it's real world driving conditions on highway and last 10 km city out of 65 km total.

i doubt if they were able to have any downhill drive in the route. the start of the route is Manila which a little over sea level (16m/52.5ft) while the end of the route is Baguio City which according to wikipedia is at 1540m (5050ft)

Regardless of driving techniques used, that elevation change makes the results that much more impressive.

And this was apparently a 1-way run, so they didn't have the benefit of coasting home down hill!

And it's impossible to turn off the engine as the electric steering wheel will also turned off as well as brake hydraulics which will render the car uncontrollable. So this must be very true numbers! Impressive!!!!

You can kill the engine, then turn the key back to 'on' for power steering (and gauges, etc). The power brake issues is there, but the stored vacuum in the brake booster will give you a couple brake pumps before it runs out.

"will render the car uncontrollable"

Not true. :)

I used to teach defensive driving (in-car instruction). Part of our lesson plan included showing students what to do if the engine that stalls while driving ... e.g. from a mechanical or fuel problem. We did this by reaching over and switching off the engine (using the key).

You lose power steering (unless electric, and designed to keep working with the engine off), meaning you can still steer, but it requires more muscle power. You still have full power assisted braking, as Daox says, for a couple of brake applications before the vacuum reservoir is depleted. (This is a safety feature designed in to every car.) After it's depleted, you still have hydraulic brakes, but significantly more muscle power is needed to push the pedal.