Some simple things you can do with your car to help the environment. You don’t need a new car per see, just take care of the one you have.
Slow Down a Little, Save a Lot of Gas
by Peter Valdes-Dapena
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
CNN Money on line
Selected quotes –
-In a typical family sedan, every 10 miles per hour you drive over 60 is like the price of gasoline going up about 54 cents a gallon.
-Pushing air around actually takes up about 40% of a car's energy at highway speeds, according to Roger Clark, a fuel economy engineer for General Motors.
-Traveling faster makes the job even harder. More air builds up in front of the vehicle, and the low pressure "hole" trailing behind gets bigger, too. Together, these create an increasing suction that tends to pull back harder and harder the faster you drive. The increase is actually exponential, meaning wind resistance rises much more steeply between 70 and 80 mph than it does between 50 and 60. Every 10 mph faster reduces fuel economy by about 4 mpg, a figure that remains fairly constant regardless of vehicle size, Clark said.
-That's where that 54 cents a gallon estimate comes from. If a car gets 28 mpg at 65 mph, driving it at 75 would drop that to 24 mpg. Fuel costs over 100 miles, for example - estimated at $3.25 a gallon - would increase by $1.93, or the cost of an additional 0.6 gallons of gas. That would be like paying 54 cents a gallon more for each of the 3.6 gallons used at 65 mph. That per-gallon price difference remains constant over any distance.
-Engineers at Consumer Reports magazine tested this theory by driving a Toyota Camry sedan and a Mercury Mountaineer SUV at various set cruising speeds on a stretch of flat highway. Driving the Camry at 75 mph instead of 65 dropped fuel economy from 35 mpg to 30. For the Mountaineer, fuel economy dropped from 21 to 18.
-Over the course of a 400-mile road trip, the Camry driver would spend about $6.19 more on gas at the higher speed and Mountaineer driver would spend an extra $10.32.
-Driving even slower, say 55 mph, could save slightly more gas. In fact, the old national 55 mph speed limit, instituted in 1974, was a response to the period's energy crisis.
TUNE YOUR CAR UP
It cost a few hundred dollars, but it causes the car to burn fuel more efficiently, which then reduces how much you spend on fuel.
KEEP YOUR TIRES INFLATED AND ALIGNED PROPERLY
The best thing a tire can do is roll straight and easily. As little resistance as possible so the car doesn’t have to work to move. Also with less resistance the friction is reduced, thus the tires aren’t rubbed or burned which releases the toxins in the tires into the air. This is another way to reduce pollution.
WALK INSTEAD OF DRIVE
If you really don’t need the car walk. Exercise is good for you and a few miles of this is great. Unless it is a long way or you have to carry things, walk.