Hypermiling : How to decease fuel consumption

[Capper]

With everyone complaining about gas prices, I thought this was a good read.....

What is hypermiling? According to a a fantastic August 2006 story in the Washington Post, it is a method of increasing your car's gas mileage by making skillful changes in the way you drive, allowing you to save gas and thereby have an easier time withstanding the rising oil and gas prices.
This CNN.com Article gives a fantastic explanation of some of the basic concepts behind hypermiling. And in June 2008, CNN TV makes a mockery of hypermiling by only showing the extreme methods.



First (and most important) step: Start recording your gas mileage. Easiest way? Use your trip odometer. Method to check your MPG

Second step: Do you drive agressively and not know it?

The third step: How long are you sitting still at red lights?


The fourth step: Keeping moving in traffic congestion


The fifth step: Slowly accelerate after stops


The sixth step: Your cruise control saves gas (but not by using it they way you might think)

Cars used to get higher mileage in the past, especially during the 1980's, since we had learned something from the 1973 oil embargo. Remember the 50 MPG Diesel Rabbit? And a 1989 Mazda Pickup - B2200 - got 33 miles per gallon on the highway, yet the currently available pickup - a B2600 - gets in the neighborhood of 20 MPG. WTF?! Think about the money ramifications: MPG then, now. Gasoline consumption then, now. Fuel prices then, now. Who is getting rich?
Remember the window sticker on your car when you bought it? Did you ever get the miles per gallon that it showed? I certainly never did. Normally I got as much as 1/3 less MPG than the value advertised.

Hypermiling :: Maximum Miles Per Gallon

[Badluck Inc]

I miss my 86 civic with a carb that got like 40 mpg . Good read though.

[Zambini]

I always do that stop-light thing. Its more of a fun and efficient thing. Especially when I don't have to press the brake before I resume acceleration

[screwballl]

Cars used to get higher mileage in the past, especially during the 1980's, since we had learned something from the 1973 oil embargo. Remember the 50 MPG Diesel Rabbit? And a 1989 Mazda Pickup - B2200 - got 33 miles per gallon on the highway, yet the currently available pickup - a B2600 - gets in the neighborhood of 20 MPG.

yet 20-30 years later, what has changed? Not so much our driving habits as most stop signs, speed limits, stop lights and travel destinations are the same as they were a few decades ago... so that means the vehicles themselves have seen the majority of the changes. Since 1976 (and 1967 in California), there has been additional equipment added to our vehicles that by their very design is made to reduce pollution by 5-10% but also reduce gas mileage by 10-20% per device. It started with the AIR system in California in 1967, then for the rest of the US the Catalytic Converter in 1976, and then nothing else was added or changed for over 2 decades. Then in the late 90s (1997) when the administration mandated MORE devices to lower pollution, and each device added makes the engine work that much harder using more gas so the natural side effect was increased fuel usage and lowered fuel mileage.

Take a simple smaller/midsize truck with a 4 cylinder engine from the late 1980s with its fuel injection and only a catalytic converter, it likely saw around 30-35mpg. Add in the O2 sensor and that drops to 28-30. Add the AIR pump which increases the air mixture to force it to run leaner which is fine on non-computerized cars (1-2mpg drop) but as soon as you add in the computer, that sees a lean running condition and forces the system to add more fuel and that drops it to 23-25mpg.

Theres 30% as it is with those few items.. and the problem is not our driving, it is the mandated equipment that big oil, tree huggers and auto parts places lobbied for to get put in over the past decade.

Think about it: less (perceived) pollution makes the greenies happy, more car parts makes the auto parts industry happy, and more gas usage makes big oil happy.

In the end, it causes MUCH more pollution by the metal/plastics industry to create this new equipment, it causes MUCH more pollution by the refineries to increase output to feed the increased gas usage and when you are looking at 30% more pollution by factories (billions of cubic tons of pollution) and 10% less pollution by cars (MAYBE in the low millions saved)... we are still making things worse on our environment.

[PTRMAN]

SB - did you just cut and paste that post? I swear I saw it somewhere before.

Got to agree, though (you and I seem to share many viewpoints) - "Greenies" just can't seem to look down the whole supply chain and see that if they try to cut pollution, either with catalytic converters or electric cars, at one end then it just has to get put into the chain somewhere else. There is no free lunch here.

I had read somewhere that newer cars produce far less emissions than older cars - some scientific survey claiming that if the 10-year old cars on the road account for, say, 10% of all cars then they produce something like 30-40% of all the car pollution.

[screwballl]

I have typed up similar info in different places, and probably once or twice here before.

if you take a 1956 Chevy and completely rebuild its engine to like new, it will have the same amount of pollution without the pollution controls as a brand new car with a similar size engine off the lot with the devices... once both engines age, the one with the pollution controls will die faster... but by 100,000 miles, the car with the controls and devices will put less out because the devices are cleaning it up before it leaves the car. Of course the car witht he devices is more likely to be dead by 200,000 miles versus the 56 chevy should still be running and a simple tuneup or rebuild will have it back on the road in a few weeks... once the cars reach this point, the newer cars typically need entirely new engines for much more out of your pocket, and they end up more likely in the junk yard and crushed since it is cheaper in the long run to just make payments on a different new car.

[onebxr]

I find that logic flawed, cars today are being built better than at any other point in history! It is not uncommon for a car to go 200,000+ miles. The thing about our society however is that we are a throw away society and we never keep a car around long enough to realise its full potential. I have a 98 toyota tacoma that is well over the 100,000 mi. mark and has never had anything but general maintenece on it. And I will keep that truck until my wife gets tired of pushing it.
As for emissions, you lost me.
-1

[PTRMAN]

And on a timely note I found this from today's NYTimes (yes, I take it with a big grain of salt because it comes from THAT newspaper). And they're discussing the CARB, which

I like the manufacturer's solution - everybody buy a new car every year.

IDEAS & TRENDS; Anti-Pollution Campaigns Declare War on Old Cars - New York Times

"The Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association says that 85 percent of vehicle pollution comes from pre-1980 cars. The reason is not only their age. The older cars have fewer anti-pollution devices. With those systems, new cars emit 95 percent less hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide and 76 percent less carbon monoxide than the cars of the mid-1960's, automakers say. At least, that is, when the new cars are still new.

For years car manufacturers have suggested that the solution to dirty air is for everyone to buy new cars. The new rules, which will take effect with some of the 1993 models, will force manufacturers to guarantee that their pollution controls keep working for what is essentially the life of the product."

[screwballl]

problem #1: the pollution produced by factories today on a per car basis is twice what it was 30-40 years ago.

problem #2: sure lets use the profits from the NYT to give everyone $5,000 towards a new car every year... lets see how long that lasts...

problem#3: they are testing 60s and 70s cars with hundreds of thousands of miles on them and comparing them to almost new cars... if they test these 2000 or 2008 models in 2040, they will see almost as much pollution from these cars that were not well maintained but may still be running.

[PTRMAN]

Originally Posted by screwballl

problem #1: the pollution produced by factories today on a per car basis is twice what it was 30-40 years ago.

problem #2: sure lets use the profits from the NYT to give everyone $5,000 towards a new car every year... lets see how long that lasts...

problem#3: they are testing 60s and 70s cars with hundreds of thousands of miles on them and comparing them to almost new cars... if they test these 2000 or 2008 models in 2040, they will see almost as much pollution from these cars that were not well maintained but may still be running.

1) Wow! That's amazing!
2) Does the NYTimes even have profits anymore?
3) Consider the source - did you really expect a "fair" comparison?