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Change your driving habits to save on petrol
Posted by Sarah Stokely at 1:25 PM on April 15, 2008
Wise Bread offers up a couple of ways to save money on petrol - and the big one is just slow down your driving speed.
On highways, the "sweet spot" for fuel efficiency is 55 miles per hour, or 90 km/hour. In fact, due to wind resistance at speed, you may use up to 20% more fuel if you speed up from 90km/hour to 120 km/h, according to figures the article quotes from Eartheasy.com.
Even on city streets, there are some ways to increase fuel efficiency - learn to take your foot off the accelerator when you can see you'll need to slow down or stop. Accelerating burns fuel - so it's wasteful to accelerate up to a red light, then hit the brakes.
Looking for other ways to save on petrol? We previously told you how to shop around online to find the cheapest petrol. Got any other tips for saving on petrol? Share in comments please.
How to save $0.54 per gallon on gas [Wise Bread]
On highways, the "sweet spot" for fuel efficiency is 55 miles per hour, or 90 km/hour. In fact, due to wind resistance at speed, you may use up to 20% more fuel if you speed up from 90km/hour to 120 km/h, according to figures the article quotes from Eartheasy.com.
Even on city streets, there are some ways to increase fuel efficiency - learn to take your foot off the accelerator when you can see you'll need to slow down or stop. Accelerating burns fuel - so it's wasteful to accelerate up to a red light, then hit the brakes.
Looking for other ways to save on petrol? We previously told you how to shop around online to find the cheapest petrol. Got any other tips for saving on petrol? Share in comments please.
How to save $0.54 per gallon on gas [Wise Bread]
Tags: au | being green | driving | how to | saving money
Comments
Ian Sampson
Posted April 15, 2008 5:06 PM
Hmm dodgy statistics perhaps? "you may use up to 20% more fuel if you speed up from 90km/hour to 120 km/h". How much faster is 120km/h vs 90km/h? If its greater than 20%, it makes more sense for me to speed right (and it is what 30% faster right?) so I'm better to travel at 120km/h than 90km/h just on fuel economy alone based on that figure. I'll ignore fatigue and time to travel on long journeys.
Sarah Stokely
Posted April 15, 2008 5:43 PM
Well, I buy their argument that greater wind resistance at higher speeds makes a big difference to fuel consumption, but who knows how rubbery those particular figures are.
locus
Posted April 15, 2008 11:00 PM
OK, so yeah, some dodgy statistics...
Braking, no matter how hard or soft has exactly 0% difference on fuel economy (ok, so you may need to get the brake pads changed sooner, but it uses no more gas)
Optimum crusie speed differs greatly, even on the same model car, from engine size/cylinders etc..
switching the car off adds wear (and later fuel consumption) can't remember exactly, but x% of engine wear is on startup.
(cruise control encourages lazy driving)
a block heater may reduce fuel consumption over the first 5-10 minutes, but will also use (probably coal fired) electricity.
extra tips...
try neutral when going downhill if your really worried about fuel consumption, ok, so here in melbourne there's not that many but it worked well as a student in NZ..
spend the extra coin on a hybrid,
or even HOPE that they bring out some of the hydrogen fueled vehicles...[plug in cars use (probably coal fired) electricty]
or as they say, drive less, catch p.t, or ride/walk...