Orphan Road - Slowing Down Your Car - Comments

Hmm.. If this Nissan

nickb — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 12:48:54 -0700

Hmm.. If this Nissan innovation is increasing fuel consumption what is it worth? :-D

At the moment I think every vehicle should be outfitted with monitors that provide current and historical MPG usage.

Well, what we used to do is

serial catowner — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:37:48 -0700

Well, what we used to do is glue a little block of wood to the underside of the gas pedal.

The basic problem is instant gratification, but over the years of freeway building that problem got built into the structure of driving. Not to mention that the state DOT is actually incredibly stupid when it comes to building roads.

Lately I started noticing where roads go up, then down, then up again- and I mean places where a D8 cat could have leveled the road in less than a day of scraping. Hiway 3 past the Bremerton Airport is a good example of this- for 20 years trucks have been going up and down where the road could have been level- how much fuel has that taken? Keep an eye out, you'll notice what I mean.

Another example is where on-ramps go up a hill- an almost guaranteed traffic jam, with all the fun you get when 50 mph drivers merge with a 65 mph traffic stream.

Whoa, don't even get me started on this topic...

Slowing Down Your Car

Frank — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:41:55 -0700

I like this new gas pedal idea from Nissan. It increases resistance when you've gone beyond optimal fuel consumption. You also get feedback in the dashboard. It could increase fuel consumption by 5-10%.

Aside from simply building smaller, lighter cars, there are a whole host of things we can be doing to improve fuel efficiency, given sufficient motivation. But helping people adjust their driving habits is a big part of it.

This is particularly true for hybrids. I know hybrid owners accelerate like hell and run the car with the A/C cranked all the time. Then they wonder why they're not getting 50mpg. If you really want to make the best use of a hybrid, you have to learn how to keep the gas engine from engaging, which means driving slower, starting up slowly, and braking more gradually.