Comment on Can You Modify A Car To Save Fuel?

Can You Modify A Car To Save Fuel? – Fifth Gear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39g5D7h7jf8

The weight reduction impact shows up if you start and stop as part of a test. Aerodynamic drag goes as the density of air times the velocity squared. You should have waited for a day identical to the first. You guys are in a hurry, spending money and not doing calculations or reading what is out there.

“fuel economy” “weight reduction” has 1.15 Million entry points today (Google, GMT 13 Mar 2022, 2:01 am). That is a lot of smart people hammering at the problem. But not really working together. Each one doesn’t check what has been done, there is no central place to find the best practices, so the usual ideas are explored (partially) hundreds of thousands or tens of millions of times. Don’t you expect most people who drive or operate a vehicles regularly and pay for fuel, think about ways to improve fuel economy? They do, they just don’t work together.

Ask: What factors most affect fuel economy? and you get at least 10. And over a billion entry points to sort through. Even a casual read of a few dozen gives you a better choice and guide that just making it up out of your head and personal experience, unless you did the research earlier, or experimented extensively and actually measured energy, fuel consumption, forces, weights etc.

(“fuel economy” OR “fuel consumption” OR “fuel efficiency” OR “reduce fuel”) has about 116 Million entry points

(“factors” OR “improvements”) (“fuel economy” OR “fuel consumption” OR “fuel efficiency” OR “reduce fuel”) has 41.9 Million entry points. So some people write about fuel and complain.  Almost half try to do something about it. But everyone tries to do it themselves, and do not standardize the results so things can be compared and knowledge and best practices accumulated and applied.

If I thought a prize for best mod of a car to give good everyday fuel improvements would help, I would offer it. The best I can do is try to find light weight, high energy density electric power sources. The electric cars are carrying a lot of extra weight from old designs of frames and stuff. Then all those heavy batteries.

The inefficiency of gasoline and diesel engines is mainly engine losses, getting the energy to the wheels. Much of this is well studied and can be measured.

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml – fossil fuels
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv-ev.shtml – electric

I think there are about 25,000 universities and colleges, plus tons of high schools, trade schools, and people just learning on their own. All of them are getting a smattering of what is known – because all the people who use cars, or work on them, or design them, are not working together. Every single car model could be carefully studied and improved. Wheels can be improved. Power trains definitely. If you reduce the weight substantially, then you don’t need as much support and power.

Oh well, you had a good idea. You just ran off and started doing things without checking what hundreds of millions of drivers have accumulated and tried.

How many car drivers in the world? about 1.4 Billion

Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation