Winning the Honda Challenge Cup

Last Saturday, we took the Honda Challenge Cup — a friendly competition on driving a Honda car to get the most fuel-efficient ride. I missed the earlier event a couple months back intended for the media people so I got slated for this last one.

The objective was to drive any of the Honda cars — Civic, Jazz, Accord and CRV — and use the least amount of gas along the way. Of course, there were tips given to us on how to achieve this.

honda cars

Each team has two members, a driver and a navigator (my teammate was Randy of the Daily Contributor). I took the driver’s seat with the Honda CRV 2.0 MT. There were two legs of the race — one is city driving (The Fort to Makati to Petron NLEX) and the other is highway driving (Petron NLEX to Angeles City and back). Each stop is measured with the distance traveled as well as amount of gas consumed.

honda crv 2009

For the city drive, we logged 10 kilometers per liter while for the highway driving, we bumped it up to 14km/liter. Our overall average was 13km/liter. We won in our category by 1km/liter and also manage to land 3rd place over-all (the two Honda Civics won the 1st and 2nd overall).

honda challenge

Good thing the Honda CRV has a digital meter that shows you a rough average of your fuel consumption. I merely adjusted my driving speed based on the meter (which gave me an average 17.8km/liter).

The biggest lesson — driving at 60km/hour on a highway gets you the best results in fuel efficiency (others claim it’s supposed to be 80kmph). To make sure the highway patrol doesn’t flag me for driving below minimum speed, I always tail the slowest 10-wheeler truck in the rightmost lane.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

17 Comments

Millionaire Acts says:

15 years ago

Congratulations for winning! I first saw about this challenge in Randy’s blog.
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Paul says:

15 years ago

Congratulations!

We would have been fellow participants in last August’s Honda Challenge Cup had you joined that particular contest:

http://www.unlawyer.net/?p=2189
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Abe Olandres says:

15 years ago

@jameson – lot of factors which include the type of gasoline, type of car and most especially the driver.

@brownspank – you’re right, I heard from the guys at Honda that the optimal RPM is somewhere between 1500 to 2000 for their cars.
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Brownspank says:

15 years ago

Fuel efficiency is less about maintaining that magic speed value, and more about proper gear selection and fuel control. Remember, all cars are built differently; what’s good for one car might not be for another.

Aim for good speed-to-RPM ratios (while keeping a safe speed, of course) and learn to read the road conditions ahead (traffic, uphill/downhill, curves, etc.), and you should have no problem saving fuel.
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Jameson says:

15 years ago

Sir,

Question ko lang po.. aside from 60km/h max speed ano ang secret for maximum fuel consumption?

Nasa gasolina po ba?
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Abe Olandres says:

15 years ago

@joeyboy & aldrin – gas card and GC lang.

@ali – around 17km/l and 18km/l each.

@randy – haha! at least tama strategy natin.

@jangelo – saw your name listed but wondered why you weren’t around.

@francis – only the CRVs ar MT, all the rest are AT.

@ryan – sometimes when I get bored tailing the trucks, I’d speed up to 100kmph and then switch to neutral and just cruise.
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Ali says:

15 years ago

Hey Randy thanks sa info kung 3rd place kayo driving a CRV 2.0 mas ok pa din consumption niyo kesa sa Jazz and City.

I always hear about Honda and Petron doing these types of Eco-Drive challenges, so is it the car or the gas? hehe
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Ryan says:

15 years ago

Hehe. Could never stay just at 60kmh on a highway. I’d rather take the gas penalty. LoL. Don’t tail a 10-wheeler too close, those big tires can kick up a lot of particles that can be forceful enough to chip the front paint.
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jangelo says:

15 years ago

Congrats for the prize, Abe! ;) ;) ;) Too bad I wasn’t able to participate. I had prior plans that day.

Are you enjoying driving your prize? ;)
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francis says:

15 years ago

thanks for the information, i learned something new today, by the way, automatic or manual ba mga ginamit na test cars?
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Kelvin Servigon says:

15 years ago

uhmm, ganun pala un? mas maganda kung 60kph., nice. :)
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Randy says:

15 years ago

Hi Abe,

My Honda Challenge Cup post is not yet finished. Will do soon. :D

Thanks for all the advice about blogging and love life! hehe!

The digital meter is not that accurate. Sayang!

@Ali – Yup! We are 3rd place overall after the 2 Civics (2.0 AT).
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Ali says:

15 years ago

hey yuga what were the consumptions of the 2 civics and what models were they? tinalo pa nila yung jazz and city?
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Calvin says:

15 years ago

nice. congrats! so sayo na yung crv?
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aldrin says:

15 years ago

take home the car? congratulations!!!
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joeyboy says:

15 years ago

ano premyo ninong?
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