Next Generation Cruise Control - Baseline Analysis

Having just taken a road trip, crossing the state of Florida in my 2010 Honda Insight I achieved my personal best for fuel economy on my return from Boca Raton to Bradenton.  At my first chance I enabled/set my cruise control. 

This is the scenic route, which lends itself to a diverse set of driving terrain and protocol.  Fuel economy as it turns out  is a multidimensional phenomenom.  So claims of high fuel economy can be affected by a myriad of factors.  For starters and for the purposes of this posts I'll keep it simple.  I won't bring in climatic factors, altitude, or grade...  as much as I'd like to do that, I will stick to the basic metrics and variables: time, distance, speed, fuel consumption.

This is one of those, 'here's what I learned on my most recent roadtrip' posts.

And this photo nearly says it all.  What is not shown is the average speed for this sample.  (by the way that figure is unknown)  Ha Ha....let's see, could it be 191.7 miles / hours driving?  Hmmmm...roughly 3 hours...64 mph?  Wow! 

So here's what I learned.  Cruise control may not be the best way to maximize fuel efficiency.  I found that I could do better managing my speed and adjusting according to all those factors mentioned earlier.  However....the convenience of cruise control has that advantage...it's convenient.  So I would use it when the was no grade and my instantaneous mpg hovered over 50 mpg.  When approaching a small town, like Indiantown and Arcadia, I'd go into manual mode...likewise I'd cancel cruise in fast moving traffic situations.  When I needed to accelerate I learned to avoid multiple taps on the ACC, that is, if I needed to increase my speed by 3 or 4 mph, I would tap 1 and go a mile before tapping for my next increment.  So to increase my speed 3 mph...I'd travel 2 miles. 

Unfortunately there's also a 'social' factor in maximizing fuel economy.  That is I found other drivers will tailgate, make gestures, flash their lights, honk their horns, until they had a safe window to pass me.  Even when I was going the speed limit or greater.  I felt a little guilty for slowing them down..but that may have to be the price one pays to acheive that 50 mpg milestone.

Now here's the exciting 'Eureka' moment I had.  I realized that I could outperform the cruise control when it comes to saving fuel.  AND you don't have to be a genius to do that...AND soon I'd bet we'll have a next-generation cruise control.  And with all the intrumentation and metrics that are available on the hybrids we have the technology to have an I-ECO mode for cruise control, or what I'd called an intelligent mode.  With sensors like those that enable Grade Logic Control, and conventional cruise control, to VSA, and ECO-Assist....this next generation cruise control MUST be in the works now....DON'T YOU THINK?