$4.00 Gas

FOX · Posted: Sun, 25 May 2008 10:52:01 Post Subject:

i think the US is going to see a lot of smart cars soon (within the coming years) there are already some on the roads that ive seen and saw a truck full of them on the hwy the other day... im not really ready for them haha, granted my car is about as small as they come around here

T-shirt · Posted: Sun, 25 May 2008 12:00:57 Post Subject:

In the long run something like those mini cars will probably be sold in the US (slightly bigger/less efficient, due to all the safety and emission equipment required here)
But right now, you can make a difference, with your own car(s)
a}tune it up, add the maximum recommend air to the tires,
b}plan your trips carefully to avoid extra trips/extra miles, use the most efficient vehicle you can if you have several
c} THIS IS the BIGGIE.......drive like gas cost $4-5/gal. accelerate Slowly (reasonably slowly..don't block traffic) keep your speeds at below the limit, look ahead to avoid hard braking/reaccelerating , etc.

While this guy is extreme, the idea is correct and the method works
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20706595/

You don't have to double your mileage to make a difference, even with high world demand, if we cut gas useage by 10%, the oil markets would drop dramatically.
We may never see $2-3 gas again, but we might avoid $5+ gas for a long time.

Blue|Fusion · Posted: Sun, 25 May 2008 16:48:24 Post Subject:

I looked into what that guy does to increase mileage. In cases of regular non-hybrid cars, any money you save in gas you just throw away into engine damage. Turning off the engine only to pop the clutch and start it again repeatedly? Oil, coolant and other fluids/accessories stop flowing/working. Horrible idea.

But I've got another 2 to 3 MPG out of my car by running Auto-RX through the engine oil and transmission. Had the oil change and tranny flushed Friday, and see these improvements greatly. And the tranny flush gave me some torque back Smile

.

And my favorite ideas for more fuel efficiency is either the 6-stroke engine, or the compressed air car. Can't run out of air. Can't charge $4.00/cubic foot. And one of the guys that made his own fleet of light-wight compressed air vehicles made the compressor to run off of it's own compressed air, gaining energy from friction heat, which means little to no electrical or other external power is used. Kind of win-win, no?

edvallie · Posted: Mon, 26 May 2008 12:15:00 Post Subject:

$4.19 a gallon here over the weekend, hopefully it drops back down at least a little bit. I have enough problems paying rent to have to worry about filling up my 15MPG car to get to work/classes.

I want 89cents a gallon back. Sad

=CDU=Above · Rated XXX Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 217

Take the info for what it's worth but here the Wiki on the 2007 prices from around the world.

Blue|Fusion · Posted: Mon, 26 May 2008 16:14:02 Post Subject:

I don't know how national the Giant Eagle super market is, but around here, we get money off of each gallon of gas for buying stuff there. The best thing I've found to do is buy the gift cards for restaurants at like $50 value and get $0.02 cents off for each $1. That's $1.00 off each gallon of gas for each card. Since my tank is 17 gallons, I have 3 plastic 5-gallon tanks. There's a 30 gallon limit on the price break, so I take advantage of it. I get to go longer between paying for gas since I have around 15 gallons, or almost a whole tank's-worth of gas sitting in the garage. And no money is lost in that either since the gift-cards I just use when I take my family or girlfriend out for dinner.

Oh, and my car automatically calculates the average fuel mileage so I know pretty much on the fly what techniques do and do not offer good MPG gains.

So far I increased mileage by approx. 2MPG by running that Auto-RX fluid through the engine oil and automatic transmission fluid. Cleans out everything and allows it to lubricate easier.

I noticed an average difference of 1-2MPG between low tire pressure (27-35psi respectively) versus the max tire pressure (35-44psi respectively).

A huge huge factor when doing highway driving mileage is wind. I never really though much about it except when flying, but it does make a huge difference on the ground, too. On a 120 mile trip between school and home, a 10MPH tailwind, doing 70MPH, gets me about 30-32MPG. A 10MPH headwind at the same speed, gets me only about 25-26MPG. With a difference of over 5MPG, I try my best to plan highway trips such as between school and home to correspond to weather now. If there's a low pressure system around our area, I'll go on the day the cold front moves in when driving home which gives me a good tailwind. Best I ever had was 20MPH winds and got 37MPG. The fuel gauge was still pegged on full when I get home. Smile

Another big one is the myth about the A/C versus windows opened thing. While A/C uses up quite a bit of mechanical or electrical power, the drag increases substantially when at high speeds (above 40-50MPH). Using the A/C while on the highway will yield better gas mileage than open windows.

For what it's worth, hope someone can save a few dollars on gas.

T-shirt · Posted: Mon, 26 May 2008 18:00:44 Post Subject:

T-shirt · Posted: Mon, 26 May 2008 18:05:47 Post Subject:

Blue|Fusion · Posted: Mon, 26 May 2008 19:50:26 Post Subject:

T-shirt · Posted: Tue, 27 May 2008 09:21:39 Post Subject:

here's the clip
http://zeropollutionmotors.us/?p=16
for which Discovery channel/future cars got blasted. It is not possible to run a compressor on air to compress air to run the compressor, without other energy input.
However the cars basic concept of using precompressed air, heated by a small burner to fully expand the air will work and should be available in the US in 2010 (so they say, company has been ABOUT to start production "next year" since 1996 Rolling Eyes

)
I have greater faith now that TaTa motors is building a version for India (smart people at Tata, they don't lose money on anything)
So you'll have the energy cost of compressing the air, plus the burner fuel (they claim 100MPG for that, somewhere around 60-70MPG total) still far above the 20MPG average for US passenger vehicles
Remember these will be very low power (75HP, Prius is 110 total) and very basic (foam core with 2 layers of hard plastic, very little padding and few extras), to get that kind of mileage but fine for a short drive to work/school/ or down to the qwicky-mart.