In 2015, two men drove a Volkswagen across the continental United States on just over 100 gallons of fuel.
Their 81-mile-per-gallon performance doubled the car's estimated fuel rating and set the record for the lowest fuel consumption ride of a diesel car.
The duo call themselves hypermilers and are experts in techniques that maximize a car's fuel efficiency, such as the pulse-and-glide.
In the pulse, drivers accelerate slowly until they're traveling slightly above their intended speed.
They then slowly release the throttle and glide, until they're slightly below, and repeat.
To understand why this strategy saves fuel, we first need to unpack what exactly is going on beneath a car's hood.
Non-electric cars run on internal combustion engines or ICEs.
Cars are often advertised as sporting a 4-, 6-, or 8-cylinder engine, which refers to this device's main components.
Within each of these cylinders is a piston, which moves up and down, spinning a bar known as a crankshaft, effectively converting linear motion into a rotary motion that can drive the wheels.
What powers these pistons' movements is what gives these engines their namesake: combustion.
