Scott used portable
batteries and a
Bluetooth speaker to
help his run.choice of the Honda Insight. All I had to do
was beat the EPA’s highway fuel economy
rating by a fraction of a percent, and I’d
make it. Beating EPA numbers is harder to
do the higher they are—percentage gains
don’t reflect marked mpg improvements—
but it’s not impossible.
My seemingly ridiculous plan to mini-
mize power drain on the Insight by plug-
ging my phone into a 1,000-mA-hr battery
pack and a Bluetooth speaker, rather than
use the onboard USB port and stereo, felt
like a stroke of genius. So did purposely
dehydrating myself that morning before
getting in the car so I wouldn’t have to stop
to use the bathroom. [An army may travel
on its stomach, but someone still has to dig
the latrines.—Ed]
It helps, though, if your route accounts
for altitude and weather. Considering the
lengths I went to to plan alternate avenues
and engineer tricks for reducing fuel
consumption, you’d think that changing
road conditions would’ve occurred to me.
But beyond my long-held knowledge that
imposing mountain passes separate L.A.
and Vegas, I didn’t give it much thought.
That’s how I ended up 70 miles from
the finish line and 20 miles away from the
next gas station, sucking fumes while my
instrument cluster flashed an estimated 18
miles to empty.
Plan B had been to top off in Williams,
the turn-off from the interstate to the
Grand Canyon. Fuel is significantlycheaper there than at our finish line, a
station in Tusayan just outside the park
gates. In the 70-mile stretch between
gas stations east of Kingman, though, it
became obvious Plan B was off the table.
That left me with Plan C, Seligman, the first
gas east of Kingman; or Plan D, pushing the
limit by aiming another 20 miles down the
road to the cheaper gas in Ash Fork.
I placed my bet on Plan D as I
approached the Seligman exit and
eyeballed the posted gas prices. More than
$3.80 a gallon, at least a buck more than in
Kingman and Williams. Made sense, this
being the last major opportunity to fill up
going west and the first going east. I was
sure I’d made the best strategic decision
when I passed Miguel and his Ioniq
parked at the Seligman gas station. Sucker.
With the Honda’s 10-bar gas gauge still
showing a single bar, I wagered I could
make the 2-mile difference on the trickle
of electrons remaining in the hybrid
battery if I absolutely had to.
Christian was an afterthought by this
point. His Fusion Hybrid wasn’t getting
anywhere near the mileage I was, and I
knew he’d already stopped in Kingman
to fill up. He was out of the game, as
his pathetic after-the-fact campaign to
change the rules would demonstrate.
Miguel, though, had been reporting
miracle fuel economy from his trip
computer over the walkie—way better
than EPA. Mine was showing considerably
worse than EPA, but I was still on the
road, crawling along, and he was filling up.
With my eyes keeping watch over the
worsening road conditions, a Ford cop car
went blurring by: Christian in his Fusion,
going at least 80. He should’ve been
running the lights and sirens.
Shackled to my decision, I tried to
focus on a back episode of the How
Did This Get Made? podcast to distract
myself from the fuel gauge.
It’s not like there was much else I couldtop-ranked vehicle on the list. The EPA
also says the Ioniq Blue has a range of
690 miles—more than enough for the
550 miles or so that we needed to cover.
I didn’t care about the Ioniq’s deficient
driving dynamics or the head snap deliv-
ered by the poorly calibrated six-speed
dual-clutch automatic transmission. I
cared about having the best fuel economy
and winning.
After my peristaltic panic cost both
time and money—I’d overlooked the big,
bold sign announcing $3.89 per gallon at
that Chevron in Seligman—my concern
for winning was all but gone. In retro-
spect, I could have done more to find the
cheapest fuel instead of relying on the
Ioniq’s remarkable efficiency to carry
it all the way to the finish line. Nothing,
however, could have prepared me for the
very emergency I’d faced, so perhaps it
didn’t matter.
With 5 gallons of very expensive gas in
the tank, I stopped the pump and sprinted
toward the Grand Canyon, knowing I’d
probably get there last. Miguel Cortina
It’s Not Crazy if It Works
I have made a terrible mistake.
I was confident about Plan A. The
magnitude of that hubris was not lost on
me as I bet the farm on Plan D.
Plan A should’ve taken me all the way
to the finish line without refueling. An
EPA-estimated range of 550 miles, just
enough to meet Google’s estimated length
of our route, was a major factor in my
Our cars are new,
and the math to
determine a winner
has also been
updated from 1950.FUEL RUN