One couple, one Jetta TDI, 48 states, 59 mpg
In September, Helen and John Taylor averaged an astonishing 58.82 mpg over their 9419-mile journey through all forty-eight contiguous U.S. states in a stock, manual-transmission 2009 Jetta TDI, setting a Guinness record and chalking up their thirty-seventh world record for fuel economy. We met up with the miserly Australian couple in Santa Monica, California, about halfway through their continental journey.
Your Jetta is rated at 41 mpg on the highway. How are you averaging almost 60 mpg? Observation skills are very important - we find that American drivers tend to run up to traffic lights at full speed and then slam on the brakes. We downshift and coast toward red lights. Quite often, as you approach the red light, it'll turn green. Our Web site (www.fuelacademy.com) has thirty tips to improve your fuel economy.
Is this drive only on the interstate only? Most of it, but we did drive through New York City at 5:30 p.m. in bumper-to-bumper traffic. And then it took us two and a half hours to get through Boston the next day. And we made it over some major mountains. In Montana, we climbed to 7200 feet.
Is it true that you met each other during a fuel economy challenge? John: Yes, I was recruiting a team. I set the benchmark, and Helen beat it. I took her to the challenge, and she smashed the world record. Then she did the same thing in Australia. I figured it would be cheaper to marry her than to pay her wages. ...next page >>