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fuel economy
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Fuel Economy
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fuel economy
classic ad watch
Drive Phoenix To LA Very Slowly In a 1974 Mercury, Get Crap Mileage!
How is it possible that a car weighing just over 2,200 pounds and equipped with a 2-liter engine can drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles at the maddeningly geriatric speed of 50 miles per hour and manage only a pathetic 32.4 miles per gallon? Yes, that's the best the '74 Capri could do! We're thinking it was the weight of several tons of Malaise pushing down hard on the car during the trip (not to mention the restrictive first-gen catalytic converters and miserable engine compression ratios of the era). The six-cylinder Comet made the same trip and grunted out an Saudi-oil-baron-pleasing 26.6 MPG, so we shudder to imagine the sort of single-digit mileage a 460-equipped Country Squire would have achieved.
classic ad watch
Got Three Cylinders And It Uses Them All: 1984 Chevy Sprint
Yes, 53 highway MPG... 24 years ago. The little rebadged Suzuki got the kind of gas mileage that many Prius drivers will never see in real-world driving, but we're betting that today's car buyers would find its noise and lack of cupholders absolutely intolerable. Still, can you do this in a Prius?
offbeat news
Truckers Slowing Down As Diesel Tops $4 Per Gallon
The Associated Press reports that as the cost of fuel rises, truckers are being forced to slow their average speeds by 5-10mph to save money. As of Thursday, the nationwide average for a gallon of diesel was $4.03, up from $2.74 a year ago. Both large trucking firms and independent owner-operators are being affected.Photography credit: C.P.Storm More »
alternative energy
Think Your Prius Gets Good Mileage? Custom 1959 Opel T1-amino Gets 376 MPG
We thought getting 72 mpg in the 2007 Honda Civic i-CTDi was pretty damn good, but feast your eyes on this 1959 Opel T1. Admittedly it's far from stock and doesn't exactly have the greatest of creature comforts, unless plastic seats and hippy paint are your cup of tea. The car landed in the 1975 Guinness Book Records with 376.59 mpg and recently resurfaced after years of languishing in the Talladega Museum (for some weird reason). The real question is how did they do it?More »
alternative energy
While We're At It, Here Are Some Real Hypermilers
We first met Metrompg when we did a story on Mr. Harry Stevinson way back in 2006. Since then we've been occasionally plucking bits and pieces of interesting fodder from them and their all grown up version Ecomodder. The incredible 72 miles per gallon we got out of the 2007 Honda Civic i-CTDi is almost an entry point for these guys. If you want to know how to mod your jalopy for ludicrous mileage, these are the places to go.
alternative energy
Big Gulp Capacity More Important Than Fuel Economy, Says Forbes
junkyard
Save Gas The French Way: Econoscope!
When scavenging the local self-service junkyard for parts to put on our 24 Hours of LeMons car, I spotted this '84 Peugeot 505. Because you always see entertainingly weird stuff in French cars, I took a look inside this one... and, sure enough, there it was: the Econoscope! At first I figured it was just a clever name for the tachometer, but then I saw the three lights below the "Econoscope" lettering. I assume the Econoscope is just a vacuum sensor that indicates low vacuum or high vacuum, but it can't be so simple; this is a French car, after all!More »
news
GM to Achieve Mileage Targets With Logic, Turbos
Instead of throwing all of its cash down the yawning maw of biofuel and hydrogen fuel cells, GM intends to get some quick fuel economy wins the smart way - with lower displacement and turbos. Automotive News (sorry, subscription required) is reporting GM will be following a strategy similar to Ford with its EcoBoost engines, namely using smaller engines in large vehicles, but bolstering them with the magic of exhaust driven compression. There's no speculation on when or in what we would see this strategy start to play out. We're on the torn here; big brutish V8's make us happy and can get decent mileage (see Corvette), but the fevered banshee scream of a turbocharged four banger is pretty rad too.
news
Ford Super Duty Pickups To Guzzle Slightly Less Gas
The 2008 F-Series Super Duty trucks will get improved fuel economy, in addition to the Tonka Truck looks. According to Ford, new trucks could see an improvement of as much as 1.5 MPG, or 10 to 15-percent over current models, depending on how the truck is used. In order to achieve this improvement, Ford lowered the front spoiler to improve aerodynamics and replaced the 3.73 ratio rear axles with 3.55 rear axles, thus shortening the amount of rotations needed by the driveshaft to turn the axles. More »
offbeat news
All we were able to find on the above video was the caption "crazy guy so upset with high gas prices sets a gas station on fire." At first we were a wee bit skeptical, until we saw the sign in the background advertising the name of the station. Oh of course, it's Crazy Eddie's Chevron. Yup, you know, the guy with the commercial and the tagline "Come to Crazy Eddie's Chevron where the prices — and the customers — are insane!" You don't remember that one, eh? Must not be watching the same channels we are. Anyway, if any kids out there are watching this, remember not to walk through the gas as you're spraying it. If you do, we may have to teach you a new word — "self-immolation."
Man Attempts to Set Gas Station on Fire Over Cuh-razy Prices
All we were able to find on the above video was the caption "crazy guy so upset with high gas prices sets a gas station on fire." At first we were a wee bit skeptical, until we saw the sign in the background advertising the name of the station. Oh of course, it's Crazy Eddie's Chevron. Yup, you know, the guy with the commercial and the tagline "Come to Crazy Eddie's Chevron where the prices — and the customers — are insane!" You don't remember that one, eh? Must not be watching the same channels we are. Anyway, if any kids out there are watching this, remember not to walk through the gas as you're spraying it. If you do, we may have to teach you a new word — "self-immolation."
industry news
UPS to Infuriate NASCAR, Eliminate Left Turns
What's worse that a big, brown and ugly truck clogging up the streets everyday? Probably a big, brown and ugly truck constantly moving through traffic and clogging up the street. There are 95,000 UPS trucks out everyday and soon they will be drastically reducing the amount of left turns, focusing the delivery routes on making mostly right turns (I wonder if the same rule will apply for Dale Jarrett's UPS-sponsored car — that could get real messy). Eliminating the left turns will reportedly save three million gallons of gas annually. More »
novelties
Toyota, Others to Expand Fuel Gauges that Secretly Judge You, Your Driving
Manufacturers have been adding gauges that calculate fuel economy on the fly for some time now, especially thanks to this whole green fad 'merica has going on. It's even inspired a video game-like sport called "Hypermiling." We're told Toyota wants to get a little bit more in on the fun by possibly expanding its selection of vehicles beyond the Prius that include gauges that monitor gas efficiency and usage. There is good reason to include gauges like this. Despite usually being pretty self-conscious of their driving, most drivers still usually shrug off criticism from other motorists, but once your car is telling you your driving style is exploding the ozone, then that may hit a bit more close to home than a faux "gas guzzler" ticket. More »
industry news
Fuel Economy Rules Near Completion, Automakers Shift to Bicycle Production?
It looks like automakers will have to meet the dreaded 35-mpg fuel economy standard despite the gazillion dollars they claim it will take to get their cars sipping gasoline like it's Dom Pérignon. Senate and House members are working out the final details of a bill that will likely have a significant impact on what we drive over the next decade and then some. Automakers had been lobbying against the initial bill, expressing specific concern over wording that would require cars and light trucks to meet the same 35-mpg benchmark. The latest edition allows vehicle to meet standards lower than 35 mpg based on their weight and size as long as an automaker's entire fleet meets the 35-mpg standard. Click through the jump to find out what other changes are expected — and what the chances are that Toys 'R Us (how the hell do you type a backwards 'R' on a computer?) will bring back that $50 Dodge Viper bike. More »
offbeat news
At least that's what Glenn Zimmerman, a reporter at the local Detroit ABC affiliate WXYZ insinuates may not happen in the not-so-positive effects-of-capitalism case we reported on earlier today. He's questioning whether the local Marathon gas station owner who, after the victim allegedly showed up on site looking to and eventually causing a ruckus, reportedly shot his BP-owning competitor in the head will end up being charged with anything. And all this over three pennies on the gallon. Jeez, can't we all just get along?
Gas Station Owner May Not Be Charged In Shooting Death Of Competitor
At least that's what Glenn Zimmerman, a reporter at the local Detroit ABC affiliate WXYZ insinuates may not happen in the not-so-positive effects-of-capitalism case we reported on earlier today. He's questioning whether the local Marathon gas station owner who, after the victim allegedly showed up on site looking to and eventually causing a ruckus, reportedly shot his BP-owning competitor in the head will end up being charged with anything. And all this over three pennies on the gallon. Jeez, can't we all just get along?
offbeat news
So there's these two stations over on Fort Street near Springwells in Detroit. One's a BP and the other's a Marathon station. Both are known for offering pretty decent gas prices downtown and we've bought gas at both stations depending on which station seemed to have the daily price leverage over the other. But apparently the penny price war between the two stations we'd always taken advantage of has now gone deadly. Last night BP station owner Jawad Bazzi got a bullet to the head over a 3-cent difference in the cost of regular unleaded. Here's what we're told happened:
More »
Detroit Gas War Turns Deadly, Station Owner Killed Over 3 Cent Price Bump
So there's these two stations over on Fort Street near Springwells in Detroit. One's a BP and the other's a Marathon station. Both are known for offering pretty decent gas prices downtown and we've bought gas at both stations depending on which station seemed to have the daily price leverage over the other. But apparently the penny price war between the two stations we'd always taken advantage of has now gone deadly. Last night BP station owner Jawad Bazzi got a bullet to the head over a 3-cent difference in the cost of regular unleaded. Here's what we're told happened:
More »
gas prices
Gas Hits Five Dollars a Gallon In California, The End Times Draw Ever More Near
Although AAA of California is reporting some drivers are now paying $4 a gallon for regular unleaded gasoline, local Cali station KSBW found gas stations in Gorda, south of Big Sur, currently charging $5 per gallon for gas. While that's obviously an isolated occurrence, the average price is getting pretty high up the cost meter. For instance in Salinas, AAA recorded an average of $3.39 per gallon. Santa Cruz is at an average of $3.37 per gallon. Yes, the gas prices in California are always higher than elsewhere in the country, but this is getting ridiculous. Something must be done! Oh, Toyota — please come and save us. If they only could get every individual in the United States to drive a Prius — then all we'd have to worry about is cows farting. Also, we'd be living in a fantasy. (Hat tip to SwatLax!) [via KSBW]
government
Click n' Clack Endorse Higher Fuel Economy Standards For Automakers
Tom and Ray Magliozzi , better known as the co-hosts of NPR's Car Talk Click n' Clack, dropped a letter to the US House Select Committee on Global Warming that they endorse 35 mpg standards. The pair claimed"When we're facing a future of global oil wars and economy-killing gasoline prices, perhaps having single commuters drive 5,000-pound SUVs is something we'll just have to learn to live without."More »
