fuel efficiency

Drive Smarter, Greener with ecoRoute from Garmin

jplatt — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:00:00 -0500

If you own a Garmin GPS unit, and you're looking to make your driving just a little bit greener, then the company has something just for you.

Their new ecoRoute program -- announced recently at the Consumer Electronics Show -- helps you to calculate the most eco-friendly driving routes available to you. ecoRoute users have the option of choosing the route that will use “less fuel” compared to other routes. Garmin says the program "will determine if more fuel efficient routes exist based upon road speed data and vehicle acceleration data for a given route."

ecoRoute also keeps track of your mileage and your fuel economy over time, both of which are great data points to have to help you improve your driving.

ecoRoute is available online as a free download. It's compatible with Garmin's nüvi 205 and 705-series products.

Gallons Per Mile, Not Miles Per Gallon

khallgeisler — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

I was at an event with my fellow automotive journalists last week, two of whom were down from Vancouver, BC. Conversation turned to fuel economy, as it always does these days, whether you write about cars for a living or not.

The Canadians talked about their cars getting "litres per 100," which took me a minute to figure out. Like most countries that use the metric system, Canadian fuel efficiency is measured in the number of liters it takes them to travel 100 kilometers. This is exactly backward from the U.S. convention of measuring the number of miles our cars can travel on one gallon of gas.

It turns out the Canadian system gives a better measure of efficiency, according to researchers at Duke University. The team made this one-question quiz to demonstrate how our intuition fakes us out when talking about miles per gallon, as opposed to gallons per mile.

The article explains the math, which isn't all that complicated, but there's also a handy table so that we can see at a glance how the conversion helps consumers understand their vehicles' fuel usage. A car that gets 20 mpg, to use a pretty common rating for an example, uses 5 gallons per 100 miles driven. A car that gets 30 mpg uses only 3.3 gallons per 100 miles -- a savings of almost 2 gallons per mile, or about $8.50 these days.

But say you're already a Ford Fusion four-cylinder fan getting 30 mpg, or 3.3 gal/100, and you want to upgrade to a Toyota Prius. The hybrid would get about 45 mpg, or 2.2 gal/100, which only saves you 1 gallon of gas, or about $4.30. That slim difference might be enough to get you to keep the Focus, while the mid-sized sedan owner in the last example would do well to get a more efficient vehicle.

All of this is a great way to save money on gas, but let's not lose sight of the fact that every gallon of gasoline we don't use in our cars is one less reason to start drilling for oil willy-nilly. For once, saving money is about saving the planet.

By the way, our Canadian friends are paying CAN$1.40 a liter these days, or US$5 a gallon.

Photo by caribb.

Ditch That Old Clunker -- And Get Paid

khallgeisler — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Conventional eco-wisdom says that driving an older car into the ground is better than tossing it into the junk yard and buying a gleaming new one off the showroom floor. It's true that it's better to keep still-usable materials out of landfills, but those tailpipe emissions aren't doing our air quality any favors, not to mention the poor fuel economy. So, how about if we sweeten the deal?

Some states are offering a bit of green incentive to drivers of older, more polluting vehicles. In Texas, for example, low-income drivers in the major metro areas can get up to $3,500 in credit toward a new car purchase as part of its "Drive a Clean Machine" program.

In its ongoing struggle against smog, California is offering up to $1,500 toward the purchase of a new car if the old one fails its emissions test, or $500 toward the price of repairing the car enough to pass the test.

The biggest state of them all, Canada (some call it a country), will offer $300 in cold, hard Loonies to drivers who ditch their old cars. They can also choose a discount on a bicycle or transit pass, if they'd prefer.

It almost goes without saying, but the car manufacturers are big fans of these programs, especially after being hit so hard in the sales department this spring. They are tactful enough noto mention that programs like these can help them out of a double-digit sales slide, instead couching their enthusiasm in concern for the environment.

These programs require millions of dollars to run, but it's worth it in places like Los Angeles and Dallas-Ft. Worth to clean up the smog. If you live in one of these cities, take full advantage by trading in your 10-year old car and buying the hybrid you know you covet.

Photo by bcostin.

MPGs and Model Ts

tdupuy — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Would you like to know the carbon footprint of your new Cadillac Escalade? I bet you wouldn’t. Nope, if you drive one of those you don’t really care about MPGs or pollution. I’m sure you’re just too busy eating your young.

Okay, cheap shot - totally uncorroborated (but not unimaginable). Your annual carbon footprint, according to fueleconomy.gov, is 13.1 tons of C02, by the way. Worse than the 12.2 of the Hummer H3 (the H1 and H2’s footprints are suspiciously absent from the site). Oh yeah, I have found a new realm of self-righteousness and reason to be snotty to people in traffic. Not that I needed any more, I was plenty snotty already…

This one started with mild curiosity:

I read somewhere that the Model T got better gas mileage than the average light-duty vehicle today. Think about the leaps the telephone has made in the last 100 years. From a glorified telegraph machine at the turn of the last century to the iPhone. But cars are getting WORSE fuel efficiency?! The answer is yes and no. The reports of the actual MPG of the Model T vary. Some say that it got average of 21 MPG; others, up to 25. The average for all vehicles today is 21 MPG. But the fudging of the MPGs for sake of argument may never change. The Model T’s all 4 cylinders couldn’t go above 45 miles an hour. It also had a whopping 20 horsepower (compared with the ’07 Camry that has 269).

The thing from an environmental stand point with the Model T was that early versions could run on ethanol. That changed during prohibition. The Model T was not chosen as the most popular car of its time because it was good looking, safe or fuel efficient. It became popular because it could be mass produced and Ford had a credit program where the middle class could at last own an automobile. There were other electric and steam powered cars that were superior to the Model T but economic Darwinism left them behind.

So the Model T kind of got around the same gas mileage as today’s vehicles, if not held to any today’s standards for automobiles. Skewed factoid, but still very interesting. Still mortifying.

That lead me to the EPA’s website, where I looked up what the MPG is on my car (an ‘07 MINI Cooper manual). There is a bit of a difference between what the manufacturer said it was going to be (37-40) and what it actually gets (average 35).

The website now offers to quantify the carbon footprint of your vehicle. Mine is 5.9. The Prius is 4.0. The Aston Martin DB9 Coupe- 15.2. Now I have the ammunition for a juicy new prejudice! “Your footprint is over 10 - don’t even think I’m letting you in!” “Oh yeah, you don’t care about smog, Mr. 11.3? - I don’t care about speeding up so you can have this parking place.” “Hey you, 9.6! Go @*#& yourself!”

Does The Smart Car Live Up To Its Name?

tdupuy — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Has anyone not heard about the new ForTwo Smart Car? A member of the Mercedes Car Group, the Daimler AG Company is going to sell their microcar in America later this month. And they’ve managed to be profiled on every news program imaginable.

So, as the story goes, it’s tiny. From the $14K starting price to its tiny little 3 cylinder engine. Itty bitty. It seats 2 adults and purports to get around 40 miles per gallon and goes up to 70 miles per hour. These cars have been available in Europe and Canada for ages. And finally they are coming to the US - the car country - the big huge car country- home of the RV sized SUVs. Grrr.

Now, in an effort of full disclosure, I signed up for the $99 reservation program back in 2007. I guess that’s more of a confession, full disclosure would denote conflict of interest. I was just interested. Anyway, I reserved a silver Passion ForTwo over 6 months ago. Today I got around to mailing them a letter asking them to refund my deposit. You may ask why. Why am I not fully embracing this vehicle that claims to be an ‘environmental statement’ on its website? Why did I jump at the chance to reserve one and falter on closing the deal?

Well, as a blogger for an environmental website I will say this: all that smells like compost is not green, my friends. The deal breaker for me was that the car is not fuel efficient.Kelly Blue Book says that it should get about 33 MPGs city and 40 MPGs highway. Real world driving conditions are always way lower than the numbers given at KBB. So it could realistically be around 32 MPGs on average. That’s with one less cylinder than the average econo sedan, half the horsepower and with two less seats. That’s disappointing.

No, I take that back - it’s not disappointing - it’s maddening! How does this tiny little car with an engine comparable to a toaster’s not do better on fuel?! It’s outrageous. In all the hype over this car and its parking ability, I have yet to hear an answer for that. It reminds me of the infuriating Consumer Report that stated the Honda Accord Hybrid got a meager 1 MPG more than it’s regular Accord counterpart.

This one just smells like compost…