Another Pink World

About

« BPAL - sniff-fest #2, Swank, Dorian | Main | ...and here's one i didn't think of »

September 04, 2005

want to improve your fuel mileage?

This is an issue i've been concerned with since i bought my first new car in 1993. This week I've had a lot of people want to discuss biodiesel with me, many more than usual. People are waking up to the fact that we can't live the way we've been living. Sadly, a hit to the pocketbook is the thing that got everyone's attention, even though the larger picture of air quality, global warming, and finite resources has been well known for decades.

I don't do all of these things myself, but it is good to at least know and be aware of the ways in which an individual can reduce their consumption of fossil fuels, particularly fuels for transportation, which is what I'll be focusing on here.

drive less

the best way to save fuel is to drive less. we all know that staying at home, walking, biking, carpooling, van-pooling, and riding public transportation are good ways to drive less. here are some things that most people don't think about doing.

• know your area so you can plan the most efficient routes. buy a map of the area where you drive the most, and take a good, long look at it. there are roads you don't know about or understand on that map-- i guarantee it. you may be shocked if you trace your usual route to your favorite restaurant or your friend's house... it may be wildly inefficient. if you're going to an unfamiliar location, use your map or mapquest to plan a route in advance-- don't just wander around. i know this sounds like common sense, but i make this mistake sometimes and i know other people who do, too. take that map in the car with you, too.

• plan your errands carefully. this relates back to knowing your area. group all of your outings into one. plan a route in advance that is going to get you to each one as efficiently as possible. i know i often feel fatigued during errands, especially when it's hot. bring snacks and water if you need to, to get through the whole list in one trip.

• we have a sprawl problem in this area (the triangle). find ways to get all of your raleigh stuff done while you're in raleigh, and all of your durham stuff done while you're in durham. or enlist a friend who lives in the area to help you out. the drive between durham and raleigh is not insignificant-- don't do it if you don't have to. it adds up.

idle less

• don't get into traffic jams. if the interstate is always jammed when you go home from work, change your route or your hours.

• don't go through drive-throughs. you wouldn't believe how fast fast-food restaurants are when there's no one inside them (because everyone's in the drive-through). besides, it's nice to stretch your legs and not talk into a machine for your food.

be a better driver

• the first thing i'm going to say, and i know a lot of people will have objections to it, is that if you want to get the most out of every gallon of fuel you put into your vehicle, you must drive a manual transmission. don't kid yourself that the modern automatic is as efficient as a manual or more so. it is not. even the CVT (continuously variable transmission) "automatic" that they put on the mini and the hybrids is not as efficient as a manual. check the epa's fuel economy site if you don't believe me, or just look at the stickers on cars at a dealership.
  • "I don't know how to drive a stick." if an entire generation of baby boomers, including your mom can learn to drive on a manual, you can learn.
  • "The traffic on my commute is stop and go." See above about idling less. I'll also say that I've been through a ton of stop and go traffic in my various manual transmission cars, and it's not the end of the world unless your knees are completely shot.
  • "My knees are completely shot." Ok, then you should probably be driving an automatic. Please consider a CVT hybrid.

• now, assuming that you are driving a stick, here are a few things you can do to get the most out of it.
  • high gear, low revs. if you've got a tach, read it. learn where the "sweet spot" is for your car, the speed at which your car is geared to run most efficiently. in my TDI Beetle it's 100kph, which is around 62mph. don't over-rev.
  • we all know this one, but it bears stating. no jack-rabbit starts! drive like a grandma.

• and regardless of what kind of transmission you've got, don't exceed the speed limit. park it in the slow lane and set your cruise control at 65 or 55.

• note that if you drive a hybrid, driving techniques to get the most out of it will differ somewhat, and are well documented on the internet. please, please research how to drive a hybrid efficiently if you are driving one.

drive a more efficient vehicle

we have a fairly skewed idea of "need" in this country. there are families, businesses and even individuals that need the towing capacity, passenger space and cargo space of an SUV. but we all know that many, many people who drive large vehicles do not really need them.

when selecting a vehicle, assess what you really need. what did your parents drive while you were growing up? during my childhood, my mom drove a '65 vw beetle, then a '78 honda cvcc, then moved on to small station wagons. even with four kids in the house at any given time, she didn't need anything more than that.

driving one of the slowest vehicles on the road-- an '82 diesel vw camper that gets 50hp on a really good day and weighs two and a half tons-- has been eye-opening. how much power do i really need? if i'm willing to avoid interstates, not very much. ok, most people aren't willing to avoid interstates and i'm one of them, but the truth is that we don't need lots of power under the hood. it can be fun, but it's wasteful. i've also come to appreciate that on short trips, driving slowly down back roads is damned fun and oddly, does not take that much longer. on long trips, it's still damned fun. last fall's drive into the VA mountains was one of the best drives of my life and damn, i sure miss driving her these days. slow is nice.

here are my suggestions:

• i'm a big fan of the station wagon as an alternative to SUV's and minivans. it's what my mom had when i was growing up, and there are some options for high fuel efficiency in station wagons that trump what's available for SUV's and minivans. The best that I'm aware of is the VW Passat TDI wagon, which has an EPA rating of 48mpg highway, even better than the smaller Jetta TDI wagon. Since it's a diesel, you can also run it on alternative fuels to reduce emissions and usage of fossil fuels. There are also mercedes turbo-diesel wagons available used; I have a neighbor who uses one of these with a Waste Vegetable Oil tank and he claims it works great.

• if you don't need that kind of space, consider one of the following. most are not still produced but can be found used.
  • the geo metro. it's retro! close to 50mpg.
  • the 1993 honda civic cx hatchback. 46mpg highway, cool "clamshell" style back hatch door.
  • the honda insight. insight drivers regularly report mileage in the high 60's and into the 70's, and insights perform better in terms of mileage than any other hybrid available.
  • the honda CRX HI, which averages around 50mpg. christa reports that she gets in the high 30's in her CRX SI, the sport model.
  • vw golf, beetle, or jetta tdi. i average 43mpg combined city-highway in my beetle, and many tdi owners get into the high 40's and low 50's.
  • vw diesel rabbit. slow as hell, but hey, it just sips the fuel and they're virtually indestructable, which is why you can still find 'em. should be no problem to run on non-petroleum fuels.
  • older diesel mercedes station wagons and sedans. note that the diesel sedan became much less efficient in 1987, i think? or 1986? i met a woman who was driving an '85 or '86 because it was the last model year before the mileage started to degrade in favor of power.
  • many others that i don't know about.

• ok, let's say you don't have kids/dogs or you're really willing to live on the edge. transporting a metal and glass bubble around means you need a bigger engine. dispose of that bubble, you don't need such a big engine and you're using a lot less fuel. yes, i am talking about motorcycles and mopeds. they scare the crap out of me, but they are much more fuel efficient than cars. The other day I saw a woman in a pencil skirt and strappy kitten heels riding a scooter in rush hour traffic on Chapel Hill Rd. If she can do it...

biofuels can help, but be careful

I've been using commercially produced biodiesel for a few years now, but i recently found out that the fresh vegetable oil stock that it's produced from is grown using petrochemical fertilizers. So it's kind of a wash in terms of reducing dead dino usage.

Biodiesel, for those who haven't read my car lately, is diesel fuel made from vegetable oil. Vegetable oil + lye + methanol + agitation = biodiesel and glycerine. You can do this at home in a blender on a very small scale; to produce more fuel, i've met people who just used a big tub and an oar, or hacked something out of an old washing machine from the junkyard.

Piedmont biofuels is a co-op in Pittsboro, NC that makes biodiesel and it's increasingly available around the triangle. check out their web site.

Any diesel vehicle can run on biodiesel without modifications. Diesels can also run on straight, unrefined vegetable oil, kerosene, and a variety of other things. Biodiesel, petro-diesel, and vegetable oil can be combined freely in the fuel tank. The diesel engine was originally designed to run on vegetable oil, the intent being that farmers could be self-sufficient and grow the fuel they needed to run their tractors.

Many diesel owners are retrofitting their vehicles to run on waste vegetable oil, or WVO. A second fuel tank is added to the vehicle to store the WVO, which you can get for free from any restaurant that has a fryolator and a friendly manager. The car is started on a refined fuel (diesel or biodiesel) and then switched over to WVO. The driver switches back to refined fuel at the end of the trip, so that's what's in the fuel lines when the vehicle is started again. VO tends to "gel", which is why it's not ideal to start the car on it.

There's a Piedmont Biofuels pump in downtown Durham and my next task along the path toward eliminating petrochemicals from my life is to go check it out and start filling up there.

I also plan to more seriously consider the dual-tank WVO conversion for the Westy, and possibly for Spacepod as well.

hybrids aren't automatically the answer

be sure to consider the total cost of ownership of any vehicle. maintenance prices, reliability, even tire costs can surprise you. the cost of replacing the big battery in a hybrid can be $1000 or more, and recycling of the old battery isn't necessarily guaranteed.

the only hybrid that interests me personally is the insight; a golf, beetle, or jetta tdi will get comparable or better mileage to all the rest of them and can be run on alternative fuels. hybrids have the advantage in terms of emissions-- they are, essentially, zero emissions vehicles. does biodiesel run through an efficient, modern diesel such as the TDI improve the emissions? yes. is it comparable to a hybrid's emissions? probably not, but the debate rages on. nevertheless, less fuel in means fewer emissions out. that's basic.

here's what biodiesel proponents have to say about emissions. here's some more.

what am i doing?

the main things i am doing now are: planning my driving for max efficiency and driving reaaaallllyyy slowwwlllyyyy. yesterday i had a large SUV stay at a safe distance behind me for several miles as i was tooling down the Durham Freeway with my cruise control set at 55mph. maybe by driving slowly, i can lead by example.

Posted by lisa at September 04, 2005 08:33 PM

Comments

Thanks for this post! It was really informative and easy to understand. I know that sounds silly, but my husband and I were looking for info about biodiesel on the web awhile ago without much luck. We could only find really detailed or really, really basic information. This was, like Goldilocks said, just right!

Posted by: elizabeth on September 5, 2005 11:48 AM

You're welcome! I'm glad it was helpful.

Posted by: lisa on September 5, 2005 11:59 AM

Thanks for helping me get back to my TDI roots. Before I put these tips into practice I was lucky to get 38 mpg. Today I put ~10 gallons in the tank and was pleased to see that I'd gotten about 45! Rock on! I linked to this post on today's post so maybe more people will become educated, especially as gas prices go up again!

Posted by: Dan LaMee on September 22, 2005 10:14 PM

glad i could help! i got a testamonial from someone else this weekend, too.

Posted by: lisa on September 26, 2005 12:33 PM

Post a comment