[redpoint5]

It was way worse than that. This guy indirectly caused accidents. And yet there was nothing that could be done about him because 17 doesn’t have a minimum speed limit.

Even worse, he wasn't saving that much fuel. ICE vehicle operate pretty efficiently near the upper throttle range (around 75%) and very inefficiently the closer to idle you get. It's actually more efficient for ICE vehicles to climb grades and coast back down them than to steady cruise on a flat road for this reason. It's like a forced pulse and glide, where the climb is the pulse, and the coasting is the glide.

Look at this BSFC map. It took me a long time to fully comprehend it, but the basic idea is that the closer to the middle of the red island you are, the more efficiently the car is burning fuel. This engine is most efficient at about 75% throttle (torque) and 2,500 RPM. Absolutely flooring the thing and producing peak power at 5,500 RPM still keeps efficiency within the 3rd color band. It's those super low throttle positions that are all in the terrible efficiency band.

The guy not only was a jerk, but ignorant. That said, the gen I Insight 1L engine only output 67 HP, so maybe he was flooring it?