Kevin Booker fell into hypermiling. Or perhaps he coasted gently downhill into it, hypermiling being the art of driving in a way to maximise fuel efficiency. Anyway, he’s an accidental hypermiler; it started as something to relieve the boredom of the daily 70-mile commute, from Swansea to Brecon, where he works for National Parks. “It was almost a way to gamify it, to get the fuel I was using to go further,” the 44-year-old tells me. “I was learning the techniques to get the most out of that gallon.” We’ll come to the techniques.
It was a useful game. “The bonus was I was saving money. Over a month, I could save up to £50 without really increasing my journey time.” This was back in 2003, when a litre of petrol or diesel (Booker drove a diesel Vauxhall Corsa in those days) cost less than a pound.
