Hi, what are you looking for?
Siana & Zsaria: Speeding Up The Caribbean’s Energy Transition
Residential Solar Advantages — 5 Top Benefits
Why Aren’t Energy Flows Diagrams Used More To Inform Decarbonization?
US Clean Energy Goals Hinge On Faster Permitting
Solar, Solar Everywhere! Clever & Creative Uses Are Dotting The Landscape
Why Aren’t Energy Flows Diagrams Used More To Inform Decarbonization?
US DOE Ramps Up Efficiency Standards For Appliances, Funds More Efficient Wind Turbine Manufacturing
Renewables In China Trend Upward While Nuclear Trends Flat
Biden–Harris Administration Announces $74 Million to Advance Enhanced Geothermal Systems
In 2021, 20% Of Electricity In The US Was Generated From Renewable Sources
Stellantis Takes On Two Partners To Reduce EV Production Emissions
Geothermal Energy & Love In The Mouth Of The Dragon
Kenya Electricity Generating Company Plans To Install 3000 MW of Additional Renewable Generation Capacity
EV Revolution Activated: GM Puts $650 Million Into Securing Its US Lithium Supply
Reused Car Batteries Rev Up Electric Grid
EV Battery News From CATL, Toyocolor, & Toyo Ink
Why Aren’t Energy Flows Diagrams Used More To Inform Decarbonization?
Michigan Scores The $3.5 Billion Ford Battery Factory Virginia Didn’t Want
Google, Ford, GM, & Solar Companies Partner To Promote Scaling Of Virtual Power Plants
Vehicle-To-Grid Solutions Could Open Fast Lane To Net-Zero Future
From Hyundai Kona EV to Tesla Model Y Standard Range
USA’s 1st Vehicle-To-Grid Export Rate For Commercial Electric Vehicles
Shyft Group Shows Off Its Blue Arc Electric Last Mile Delivery Vehicle To Customers
Why Aren’t Energy Flows Diagrams Used More To Inform Decarbonization?
US DOE Ramps Up Efficiency Standards For Appliances, Funds More Efficient Wind Turbine Manufacturing
Perovskite-Based Thermochromic Windows Reduce Energy Load & Carbon Emission in Buildings
The Economic Tides Just Turned for States
No, Data Center Backup Isn’t A Good Fit For Redox Flow Batteries Yet
EV Revolution Activated: GM Puts $650 Million Into Securing Its US Lithium Supply
10.5% Of New Vehicle Sales Now Electric Vehicle Sales In Colorado
Anticipating Tesla’s 2023 Investor Day On March 1
Tesla’s Master Plan 3 to Be Unveiled at Investor Day
OPTIMA Explores The Off-Road Potential Of EVs At King Of The Hammers
E-Bike Comparison: NIU vs. Heybike vs. Suburbia
CleanTechnica Tested: The Flyer L885 Long Tail Cargo E-Bike
NIO ES8 Review — 1st impressions
CleanTechnica Tested: The Jackery Solar Generator 1500 Pro
CleanTechnica Tested: The Ride1Up Prodigy XC Electric Bike
German EV Market — Hangover After Pull-Forward In December
Tesla #1 in World BEV Sales by Big Margin — 2022 World EV Sales Report
BYD #1 In World In Plugin Vehicle Sales In 2022
World EV Sales Report — Tesla Model Y Wins 1st Best Seller Title In Record Year
UK Plugin Share Flat In January As Economy Stumbles
E-Bike Comparison: NIU vs. Heybike vs. Suburbia
CleanTechnica Tested: The Flyer L885 Long Tail Cargo E-Bike
NIO ES8 Review — 1st impressions
CleanTechnica Tested: The Jackery Solar Generator 1500 Pro
CleanTechnica Tested: The Ride1Up Prodigy XC Electric Bike
2023 Chevrolet Bolt EUV Premier Redline Edition — Video Review
Sandy Munro: The Coming Wave of Chinese EVs
Sandy Munro On Which Automakers Are Getting It Right Besides Tesla
Sandy Munro: How Tesla Gets To The $24,000 Car
Sandy Munro: Tesla Is “Engineering At The Speed Of Thought”
Thanks to Covid-induced supply chain issues and Russia’s war with Ukraine, oil prices have surged to over $100/barrel at times. That and the dearth of refining capacity (converting crude oil to gasoline/diesel) has pushed the price of gasoline and diesel to record highs. One way to combat these prices is conservation — the less fuel we use, the less fuel we need to pay for, and if everyone uses less fuel then the price of oil will drop. Russia was supplying about 11% of the world’s oil and the lockdowns of 2020 due to Covid-reduced fossil fuel demand of about 20% brought the price of oil to zero (for a short period). This demonstrates the principle of conservation crashing prices and defeating fuel price inflation.
If every driver on Earth adopted the best practices of this article series, then we would cut fuel use by more than Russia was supplying to the world market and would thus bring the price of oil back to sanity. And it would cut carbon pollution, buying us more time to ramp up EV production.
This is a 3-article series. In case you missed them:
Part One – Vehicle Purchase and Maintenance
Air conditioning will increase your vehicle’s fuel usage. The difference is likely between 5–15%. Not nothing, but not enormous. According to various tests, it does use less fuel to close your windows and use the air conditioning, but only on the highway. Though this varies to some extent by vehicle model and the rate of solar gain, which is not constant — heatwave days will definitely use more fuel for example.
Some, if not most, recent vehicles will have infrared reflective (IR) glass to reduce AC load. Tinting can also help here if your vehicle does not have IR reflective glass, but it does reduce visibility (though, is legal in many locations up to a certain level of opacity).
Spring weather improves mileage over winter weather and summer weather increases it still. Fuel efficiency increases up to about 30°C (86F), however AC use does reduce it. You can also reduce AC use by timing your trips for early morning or evenings to reduce AC load when possible.
A popular saying is that when driving in the city open your windows and close them up on the highway. Also opening windows on both sides of your vehicle car works far better than just opening windows on one side due to cross-flow ventilation.
Winter means cold and in many places snow and ice. Colder temperatures makes automotive fluids more viscous, which takes more energy (hence fuel) to overcome. Additionally, colder tires require more energy for the same flex (all tires flex in operation, partially absorbing bumps, supporting the weight of the vehicle and its occupants, and providing grip). In addition, there are several other factors, as talked about below.
Winter tires add road friction and reduce mileage but provide extra winter grip, which prevents accidents and saves lives. Install them when the average outdoor temperature gets below 7ºC (45F), and in spring change them back to regular tires once the average temperature again gets above 7ºC (45F). This is to reduce their wear rate, which accelerates rapidly at high temperatures. Also, changing them back to regular tires gets you back to maximum fuel economy. Finally, all-season tires are informally known as “does all seasons badly” tires. They are not a replacement for winter tires if you live in a location that gets more than a dusting of snow each winter.
Keep your car clear of snow and ice in winter to maximize aerodynamic efficiency. Foam snow brushes with rotating heads are amazing at removing snow from the roof and windows and hood/trunk, and they won’t scratch the paint.
Driving in rain, and more so in the snow, adds rolling resistance. It’s surprising how much extra energy is taken up displacing snow with tires when the road is not clear. This also applies to gravel roads, potholes, driving through mud/dirt or sand and so forth. This inefficiency is hard to mitigate beyond taking a different route, except by trying to avoid trips when there is accumulated snow on the roads and waiting until the roads are clear (if practical, it’s not likely a workplace will accept this as a reason for not coming in). Also see if your city has a pothole reporting system.
Wind resistance, especially on the highway, is much higher in winter because colder air is denser than warmer air. And in many areas, winter has more wind than spring/summer/fall. Thus, headwinds cause an extra gas penalty and tailwinds give less of a savings.
In an ICE vehicle, warming up the passenger cabin does not use much additional fuel, as the heat for the cabin comes from waste heat produced by the engine. The slight extra energy use is just for the fan to move the heat from the heater core into the passenger area. That said, some ICE vehicles have ceramic heaters so that you can get heat right away without waiting for the engine to warm up. In this case, you will save a couple percent by waiting until the engine is warm, if you can handle the cold for that long.
Heated seats, on the other hand, use electricity produced by burning fuel — hence, they do lower economy a bit. Of course, this is a comfort vs. fuel consumed calculus on your part. If your vehicle has ceramic heaters for instant heat on a cold engine, then the heated seats are more efficient. If not, then using heated seats only until the engine provides enough heat is a reasonable way to get heat faster with reduced penalty.
In an EV, cabin heat does reduce range in winter because engine inefficiency is not available for exploitation. For these vehicles, heat makes a very measurable difference, but heat pumps are becoming common and can cut this penalty by 50% or more. Precondition your vehicle if it’s plugged in so that it’s warmed up from the grid vs from the batteries. Heated seats are more efficient in an EV vs. circulated heat since you feel warmer in a heated seat than warmed air that takes time to warm up the vehicle’s interior. For a fossil-powered vehicle using engine heat, this is not a fuel savings.
With shorter days and darker nights, headlight and taillight use will be higher. This adds a few percent to fuel consumption. However, there is not much you can do to mitigate this besides attempting to do more of your driving in the daytime, which is safer anyway. LED headlight replacements will cut this use quite a bit, but most retrofits are not street legal in most countries because the beam pattern sucks compared to stock and often blinds other drivers, and/or the throw pattern does not match the OEM halogen design and you don’t get light where you need it even if the much higher claimed lumen counts are not fake. So, don’t bother with them. Headlight housings are designed to collect, collimate, and project light based on the beam pattern of the OEM light source (the bulb type chosen by the manufacturer). LED bulbs have a different throw pattern because of the underlying technology, hence are incompatible with housings designed for halogen bulb beam patterns. If the housing was designed for the LED throw pattern at the factory, then retrofit could be successful, but until this happens, stick with OEM bulb suggestions. Finally, you can get higher brightness halogen bulbs, but the technology has a wrinkle — higher brightness comes from a thinner filament, which means much shorter life. In some cases, the extra bright bulbs can last 6 months or less, versus many years for the regular filament bulbs. Also, there are no energy savings to be had here — the wattage is the same.
An integrated engine block heater will reduce the warm-up penalty talked about in Part Two. By using a block heater to reduce warm-up fuel, you are in a sense trading some carbon/money from fossil fuels for much cheaper electricity, which is also typically lower carbon intensity (and getting greener in most countries as time goes on). Use the block heater whenever possible if you have a plug handy and your vehicle has a block heater. If it does not, see if one can be retrofitted by the dealership. The colder the outdoor temperature, the greater the positive impact from the block heater. Typically 1-2 hours of block heating is sufficient to gain maximum benefits. Below -20C, add an extra hour or two. Never forget to unplug it before travel or the cord can damage your bumper, which can be expensive to repair.
You don’t need it plugged in 24/7 which will waste electricity, so use a timer if necessary, which is not expensive to buy at a hardware store or Amazon.
The block heater can reduce your fuel use by 5-40% depending on temperature, amount of heating and length of your trips.
Traffic lights not being synced can increase city fuel consumption by 20-75% or more! However virtually no one is tackling this easily solved issue. Consider contacting your city’s transportation department or sitting in on council meetings and raising this issue, writing letters to the editor, post on your city’s social media pages, speak with your mayor and more. They may complain about the cost, but frankly that’s a cop out, as they would use staff they already have and can add this job to their roster.
Ideally traffic lights should be synced to the speed limit and this information should be put up in signage so people know they can go the speed limit and save fuel by getting all green lights.
Also more people asking for the same thing tends to get better results than just one person asking so get people you know to accompany you or to contact the municipality themselves or start petitions and more.
And even consider running for office if that’s what it takes to solve this issue. And once elected you can also lobby for electric vehicles and chargers.
Finally, send this article to everyone you know ?
In conclusion, these are the broad strokes to driving your vehicle for greater fuel efficiency. There are other niche tactics such as pulse and glide, but they get more complicated and can endanger the safety of yourself and other drivers and should be avoided. Finally, don’t forget about the possibilities of carpooling or working from home. The most efficient way to operate your vehicle is to leave it at home whenever possible.
By following all the recommendations in this article series, you can reduce your fuel consumption by 20-50% depending on your use pattern, how well you use the techniques applied, and taking into consideration what percent of your mileage is city vs highway miles. If every driver on earth followed the lessons from this series, oil prices would crash.
In case you missed them: Part One and Part Two of this series.
The standard disclaimers apply. All advice is for informational purposes only — CleanTechnica is not responsible for any damages caused by inaccurate information, and the user assumes all risks of following any advice provided.
I've had an interest in renewable energy and EVs since the days of deep cycle lead acid conversions and repurposed drive motors (and $10/watt solar panels). How things have changed. Also I have an interest in systems thinking (or first principles as some call it), digging into how things work from the ground up. Did you know that 97% of all Wikipedia articles link to Philosophy? A very small percentage link to Pragmatism. And in order to put my money where my mouth is I own one (3x split) Tesla share. A link to all my articles
Advertise with CleanTechnica to get your company in front of millions of monthly readers.
Thanks to Covid-induced supply chain issues and Russia’s war with Ukraine, oil prices have jumped to over $100/barrel. That and the dearth of refining...
Thanks to Covid-induced supply chain issues and Russia’s war with Ukraine, oil prices have jumped to over $100/barrel. That and the dearth of refining...
Fuel economy for a light-duty vehicle going 80 miles per hour (mph) is about 27% lower than when traveling at 60 mph. Between 40...
It’s back to the future time in Washington, DC. The EPA and NHTSA have finalized rules governing fuel economy and exhaust emissions that will...
Copyright © 2023 CleanTechnica. The content produced by this site is for entertainment purposes only. Opinions and comments published on this site may not be sanctioned by and do not necessarily represent the views of CleanTechnica, its owners, sponsors, affiliates, or subsidiaries.