Prius C: A sub-compact hybrid, at a non-hybrid price.
by Bakari Kafele on July 13, 2012
The newest Prius, available for only 2 months now in the US, is a compact fuel-efficient hybrid. One thing it is not, however, is a Prius.
The car is really a Yaris hybrid.
But, given that “Prius” is basically synonymous with “hybrid” among average Americans, and that the Yaris may seen by some as an “econ-o-box,” it is a smart marketing move on Toyota’s part to label it as a Prius. (In its home country of Japan it isn’t called a Yaris hybrid either, its called the Aqua). Despite the misnomer, both the pricetag and the size reflect its true roots as a Yaris. Sticker, at just under $19,000 baseline, is over 20% less expensive – $5000 less – than the standard model. Of 337 different models available for sale in 2012, only 17 cars are cheaper – and none of them are hybrids.
The first time I was in the original Prius, I was shocked at just how large the interior felt. It almost seemed more like a small minivan than the “compact” car it was classified as. I guess this shouldn’t have been surprising given how most long-lasting models have been super-sized over time (the modern Honda Civic, for example, is an entire 3 feet longer than the original Civic) – but it was not that long after the debut of the first US hybrid, the Insight, and I had assumed the Prius would be a 4 passenger version of that tiny car.
Ever since, it has seemed rather odd to me that the vehicle with the best (standard) mileage for sale in the US is one which falls in the 4th highest of the 5 size ratings. Surely, I imagined, something with a Prius like drive-train, but in a mini or compact size, should be able to get even better mileage. It took them 12 years to do it, but the “Prius” C is just that.
It is over 1 1/2 feet smaller, 2 inches thinner, and almost 2 inches shorter than the original Prius, as well as 500lbs lighter – it’s actually lighter than many non-hybrid compact cars, such as the Fit, the Miata, and the new “Mini” Cooper.
The ‘C’ in the name stands for ‘City,’ where the small size would make parking easier and the lighter weight will help fuel mileage. As it does, at least in city traffic, where its meant to be used. By US EPA standards it gets 53mpg city, the highest rating of any (non-electric/plug-in) mass-produced commercially available highway capable auto in the country. At the same time, the EPA gives it 46mpg highway, slightly worse than the original Prius, and the two average out to a mixed rating of… 50mpg, exactly the same as the original Prius. However, it is very interesting to note that – although the marketing department is limited by law to only advertising the EPA generated numbers – Toyota’s own engineers estimate the mileage at a whopping 82mpg(US) under Japan’s mileage testing system. One tester even got 57mpg on the excessively hilly streets of San Francisco, so the official ratings are clearly conservative. Even a lead-footed car-guy tester with Car and Driver beat EPA with 55mpg on his test run.
Some of the reviews coming from professional car reviewers are pretty much what you would expect before even looking at them: this is a nice car – looks good, comfortable though small inside, handles decently, lots of technology and gadgets – but it doesn’t have enough acceleration. Its 0-60 is around 11 seconds. This apparently feels like driving through syrup to someone who is used to reviewing modern overpowered passenger cars, but for comparisons sake, a semi-tractor-trailer measures its 0-60 time in minutes or miles, and they are apparently capable of merging onto freeway onramps somehow. The more a particular reviewer is able to shift their frame of reference from performance to fuel economy, the more they liked it.
Bonus: everyone agrees that its 25-40mph acceleration of 3.6seconds – more what you’d use in city driving – is plenty.
Apparently consumer’s minds are coming around. Despite its small size and <100hp 10="" 2012.="" 2012="" 337="" 3="" 3rd="" 4="" 5000="" all="" and="" any="" aqua="" are="" as="" at="" award.="" been="" between="" by="" c="" can="" car.="" car="" cars="" combined="" compact="" countries="" deathtraps="" demand="" dying="" earn="" fact="" faster="" fastest="" first="" for="" have="" helped="" higher="" highway="" in="" institute="" insurance="" is="" it="" its="" japanese="" just="" keep="" literally="" minivan="" models="" month="" most="" much="" myth="" new="" of="" one="" only="" op="" original="" out="" over="" p="" part="" perhaps="" pick="" plug-in="" popular="" pre-orders="" prius="" produce="" production.="" projected="" rii="" riuses="" s="" safety="" same="" selling="" slowly="" small="" sold="" than="" that="" the="" them.="" they="" three="" time="" times="" to="" toyota="" two="" units="" up="" v="" was="" with="" world.=""> Then again, even though it is smaller than its predecessor, it isn’t really that tiny. While it is 1.5 feet less in front to back length than the original Prius, it is still a full 3 feet longer than the Scion iQ, another city car made by Toyota, which (unlike the Smart Car) has room for 4 passengers. The last 2 passengers might not be in luxury, but the reality is that most people, most of the time, don’t have 4 adults in the car. They have one, maybe 2, and possibly one or two children. So the iQ would probably be an appropriate size for many, if not most, households – especially if it’s the second of two cars. Of course the iQ gets nowhere near the C’s mileage (36/37), it is also $3,000 less.
I guess I will just have to keep waiting for a car to come out with the size of the iQ but the mileage of the Prius C. They are heading in that direction.
If one was going to get a new car now, the Prius C is the most efficient car out there, at a pretty reasonable price. In a decade or two, when used ones can be found on Craigslist for a few thousand, I might just pick one up myself. In the meantime, hopefully an ecomodder with a bigger bank account than mine will pick one up. I’d love to see what could be done with it in the right hands.
(Just want tips for swapping a BW T-19 for a ZF S5? Skip to tips. Not swapping a Ford truck transmission? Skip to the end for the results. Continue reading for all the gruesome details of my project. Hopefully my trails and tribulations can at least provide you some entertainment.)
If you’ve never driven a vehicle more than a couple decades old, you probably take overdrive for granted. You may not even have a clear idea what that term means.That 5th or 6thgear, with a ratio smaller than 1.0 (meaning the driveshaft is turning faster than the engine) lowers the engine RPM speed on the highway, and can make a huge difference in the fuel used to go the same distance at the same speed.Gears on a car are just like gears on a bicycle; imagine trying to ride a bike with only a small chainring and big cog, and having to spin your legs like crazy to get anywhere at a decent speed. Lower RPMs means less internal friction, less internal reciprocal motion, and therefore less wasted energy.
If, like me, you don’t care to spend the money for a new – or even remotely new-ish – vehicle, you may have noticed that overdrive was once upon a time not always standard equipment, or even available as an option. The Ford F-Series of trucks has been one of the most popular vehicles world-wide for decades, and though much has changed over the years, many of the internal design factors stayed the same from one generation to the next. They were rather reliable, so a good many older ones are still on the road. Those two factors mean that there is much interchangeability of parts among different generations, and those parts are easy to find. The 7th generation F-series (1980-1986) had a couple of manual transmission options, all of them 4 speed. My own 1983 diesel F-250 ¾ ton truck came with a Borg-Warner T-19, in which the 1st gear was an extra-extra low granny gear (6.32) which is normally not used. For all practical purposes it is a 3-speed. No overdrive gear. In fact, even 4th gear isn’t quite direct drive, at a 1.1 drive ratio. This means shifting into top gear at 25mph, and 2400 RPMs at 55mph. 2400RPMs means each piston is going up and down 40 times every single second, which means the mass of the piston head has to stop, change direction, move a little, stop, change direction again, 80 times every second (once up, once down, for a full rotation). This is bad enough is a small engine with light parts and a couple cylinders (like a motorcycle) but in a heavy V8 diesel engine, a lot of inertia is going to waste. Not a terribly big deal in 1983, when the national speed limit was still 55, but post-embargo gas prices had dropped again; the lack of stock overdrive leaves a lot of potential for increasing highway fuel mileage. The addition of an overdrive gear reduces engine speed from 40 cycles per second down to only 28, a 30% reduction.
The 8th generation Ford trucks came with a couple of 5-speed transmission options, and although built by a completely unrelated manufacturer, they were made close enough to the old specifications that they were interchangeable. As such, the transmission swap from gen 8 trucks into gen 7 is a fairly popular and common one. It is possible to put any transmission from a truck from 1973 all the way to 1996 into any other from that range, provided they have the same engine size, fuel type (gas vs. diesel) and drive type (4x4 vs. 2x4). This includes going from automatic to manual (or vice versa), although of course then you need additional parts. With the right adapters one can even cross the engine, fuel type, and driveline compatibilities.
I’m just going to go over one of the simplest and most common transmission swaps, the one which I recently did: starting with a Borg Warner T-19 4-spd (behind a 6.9L International Harvester IDI engine) and swapping it with a ZF S5-42 which I got on ebay (the process from the T-18 or to the ZF S5-47 should be identical). The information here would likely apply or be useful to someone doing any other 7th/8th gen F-series tranny swap as well, and maybe even 6th or 9th gen swaps - but I haven’t done them, so I can’t say specifically which parts will apply. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Before I started the project or purchased anything, I spent a lot of time looking up information on it. A lot of helpful people who have done it before have taken the time to provide information on it. Everyone consistently said “it is a bolt-in replacement”. Well, technically it is. The actual bolts line up perfectly between any transmission for the 6.9L and 7.3L diesel engines, whenever they were made, whatever size truck they were from. But “bolt-in replacement” gives the impression that everything will mate up. No. Its just literally the bolts. Almost nothing else is compatible.
I also found there are a lot of helpful people who answer the questions of people who get stuck on various truck enthusiast forums. Any problem I ran across (and any you are likely to) has probably been experiences by someone else somewhere, asked online, and answered accurately. The only problem is, you have to know the right questions to ask, (or rather the right keywords to enter into a search engine), to find those answers, and until you run into a particular problem, you don’t necessarily know the right questions to ask.
So, to insure no one else has to go through the same learning process I - and many others – have taken, I’ll list all the potential problems one may come across, if you happen to own an older Ford truck and you want to upgrade to a transmission with overdrive. Instead of going through the entire process step-by-step, I’m just skipping to the potential problems – the things I wish I had known in advance - because there are plenty of other guides and manuals that can walk you through it - but even more because really, if you have enough confidence and experience with mechanics to even consider removing and installing your own transmission, it is actually a fairly easy and intuitive process. If, like me, you’ve never changed a transmission, a clutch, or any other drivetrain parts, the following are things to know will make your job a whole lot easier:
Set aside several days aside for this project. It should only take a day. Should. If there are no unexpected complications. But you know how life is. There are always unexpected complications. They should be expected. But then other, even more unexpected ones come up. You can’t win. Reading this will make your chances better, but leave extra time anyway. You don’t want to be under your truck with a clamp on floodlight at midnight trying to have it running in time for the job you have the next morning. Trust me on that.
You don’t need any special tools other than a wide base jack (a transmission jack if you have one – I used a motorcycle jack I found on Craigslist, because it was both cheaper and more versatile for future projects). Don’t try to use a regular bottle or scissor jack. They are strong enough, but they will probably fall over, and then a transmission will fall on your head.
What you will want that you won’t necessarily find listed in the shop manual for this process is various crowbars, lengths of pipe, hammers, ratchet straps, and possibly a propane torch. Luckily I happened to have all that stuff lying around already, and I bet you do too. Crowbars and pipes are for prying parts apart and pressing them together. Hammer gets the universal joint out. Ratchet straps hold exhausts pipes and crossmember dog-ears out of the way, and, if you lay a pipe across the opening in the floor to give something to hook to, you can use a strap to hold up the back of the transmission which lets you alter the angle independently of the jack its on. The torch gets the stick shift off of the shifter stub.
When you hear it is a “direct bolt-in replacement”, they mean it literally: just the bolts. The bolt pattern from the transmission to the engine is the same, so you don’t need an adapter. Pretty much EVERY OTHER PART that goes to or from the transmission are not compatible. All in all, if wanted to do everything totally properly and by the book, that would mean replacing the clutch, pressure plate, throwout fork, flywheel, driveshaft,, crossmember, and floorpan, and possibly the clutch pedal and cylinder. I reused as many parts as I could possibly get away with, which meant I only had to buy one clutch kit and one u-joint, but that still added a couple hundred more dollars to the project than I had originally planned on.
-The Clutch. To the naked eye 10 splines with a 1 1/8” diameter input shaft (the part of the transmission which goes inside the clutch) looks pretty much identical to 10 splines with a 1 1/4” input shaft. But when you get the new tranny half in, that small difference in diameter means it isn’t going in, no matter how you angle it. You may have heard – repeatedly, from multiple sources – that it is challenging to get everything lined up perfectly and get the splines to engage. Having heard it was tricky, you might be fooled into thinking that what you are experiencing is normal. You might think it has something to do with not using a real transmission jack, or not having a helper or two, or just not having experience. You might spend all morning trying to get it positioned just right; before finally realizing this can’t be right, going online, and finding out the hole in the middle of the clutch is 1/8thof an inch too small, and it wouldn’t have gone in no matter what you did. There are 4 possible clutches that will work: 11” or 12”, and with dampening springs or without. If you go with a SMF (next step) you need springs, if you go DMF you need to not have them. The simplest/cheapest option is 11”, with springs. I used Sachs part # K0065-02, which I found at O’Reilys (same part #). (I’m not endorsing O’Reily, they just happen to be nationwide, and fairly inexpensive, so it’s a simple example to use. Cross reference the part numbers and shop wherever you like. I encourage shopping at local/independent businesses) -The Flywheel. You may or may not need to replace this. It depends on what clutch you get (and what condition your old flywheel is in when you get the old tranny off and take a look at it). If the clutch has springs in it, you need a single mass flywheel. If it doesn’t, you need a dual mass. The single mass flywheel may cause some ugly sounds when you are idling in neutral. Mine does. That’s ok, we’re ecomodders and hypermilers, we try to spend as little time idling as possible. The engine/transmission can accept single (SMF) or dual mass flywheel (DMF) with either 11” or 12” clutch, so long as they are compatible with each other and have the correct diameter hole (1 ¼”) and correct number of splines (10) to fit the transmission. The pressure plate may or may not also need to be replaced. If you are changing from single to dual mass (or vice versa) the bolt holes may not line up. The clutch kit I got came with the pressure plate, throwout bearing, pilot bearing, and alignment tool, and I kept my original flywheel, so that made this step relatively simple. -The Drive Shaft. The yoke at the end of the ZF is slightly bigger than the T-19, so it doesn’t mate up to the driveshaft using the same U-Joint. A lot of people deal with this by changing out the entire driveshaft (or at least the first section of it. However, you can also find hybrid adapter U-joints that make the existing driveshaft work with the ZF. -The Universal Joint (U-joint). This is the +shaped thing with bearings that allows the driveshaft to transmit power to the transmission, while allowing them some freedom of angle relative to each other. Just like with the clutch, in the newer generation truck, they changed the diameter of the part just a fraction of an inch, which is enough to make the old and new incompatible. Fortunately, adapters with one size on one axis and another size on the other axis are actually pretty easy to find at regular auto stores. You have to go from a ZF-5 (1350 / 1.188”) to a 6.9L IDI stock driveshaft (1330 / 1.063”). At O’Reily the part number is 448. Be careful not to let the caps fall off, or the tiny roller bearings will go all over the place, get lost or dirty, and you’ll need to buy a whole new U-joint. -The Crossmember. This is the steel bar that rests on the frame, which holds up the back of the transmission. The ZF is a couple inches longer than the BW. The difference is small enough that you can use the same driveshaft, but the holes in the crossmemeber won’t line up. If you can get one along with the transmission, it should fit in place of the old one. Or you can just drill new holes in the original crossmember, and cut away a small section to fit around the back of the tranny (that’s what I did) -The Gearshift Lever. There are several different shapes, sizes, and attachment methods. Apparently the gas and diesel versions of the same transmission and the same year even used different attachment methods. Plus some have straight shifter stubs (the part coming out of the tranny itself, that the lever attaches to) and some are curved. Some levers are straight and others are curved. If the new transmission didn’t come with the lever, you may have a fun time trying to improvise something that works. That’s if it came with a shifter stub at all. If it didn’t, well, I just don’t know what to tell you… I melted the old one off of the BW shifter stub, and then drilled through it and the new shifter stub in order to bolt them together. The old rubber was unusable after being melted off, so I used layers of bicycle inner tube and some random pipe I had lying around to fill the gap where the rubber used to be. Because improvising is just how I roll. -The Throwout Fork. The short arm which the clutch cable or hydraulic cylinder moves, which slides the throwout bearing back against the pressure plate. The little mushroom looking knob thing that the fork pivots on inside the bellhousing is a slightly different diameter. Hopefully the new transmission came with one. If not, you could probably improvise a way to make the old one work (by trimming the attachment point that goes around the mushroom knob - it probably has an official name; I don’t know what it is) Hopefully. Mine came with its own. -The Clutch Pedal / Linkage / Cylinder. Most gas engines use a cable. Most diesels use hydraulic. Most automatics use neither (ok, ok, all of them). If you are just changing with an otherwise compatible model, you probably won’t need to change any of this. I didn’t. But be aware it may change the release point and pedal feel. -The Speedometer. Some use a cable with 7 teeth. Some use 8 teeth. Some are electric. I am currently using my GPS for speed. -The Floorpan. The ZF sticks up a little bit higher. If you can get the floorpan from the truck the tranny comes out of, you may as well take the matching floorpan. I was able to get my original to work, just using a couple additional sheetmetal screws to hold it down in the places it wanted to pop up.
Speaking of the floorpan: if you’ve done transmission work before, you may think I am an idiot. But I’ll bet I’m not the only person who didn’t know, so I’ll just go ahead and say it – the little metal plate under the rubber boot where the shift lever goes through the floor, that’s not the floor pan. The entire metal plate that it attaches to is. If you remove the carpet or vinyl floor covering, you can then clearly see the bolts for the whole thing. Removing the vinyl floor covering is neither easy nor fun. But having access from the top is worth it.
The Chilton manual for the 7th / 8th generation F-series (which supposedly covers both gas and diesel versions) explicitly says there are FOUR bolts holding transmission to engine. Four. It’s the manual. It’s the freggin manual! The whole point is that it is supposed to give you more information in order to make the job easier. After removing those 4 bolts, no matter how you angle things, the transmission just won’t come out. That would be because there are actually SIX bolts!! Now you might say “but if the manual says one thing, and you are actually there on the ground and you see extra bolts, obviously you should take them out too” right? Welllll…. Those last two bolts are in a place where there is literally no possible way to see them. Unless you have very skinny and long fingers, you probably can’t feel them either. And even if you could, there is absolutely no possibly way you are going to get a wrench or socket on them. The secret is that, after having removed the driveshaft, you loosen the engine mounting bolts, and hold the engine up with a jack, not a block or jackstand. Then jack up the transmission just enough to remove the crossmember that holds up the transmission. Finally, lower the engine (with the tranny still attached to it) and when it’s low enough the two hidden bolts on top become exposed.
It looks like the part of the bellhousing which is flared out to accommodate the starter gear might just barely clear the exhaust pipe. It won’t. Before you ever start loosening the transmission to engine bolts, detach the exhaust from the headers on both sides. Also remove the starter. They say you should detach the battery first. Officially, I’m recommending that. Unofficially, I’d point out that this would make it impossible to listen to the car stereo while you work.
Don’t forget also to budget for transmission fluid, which should ideally be synthetic. All the manual transmissions apparently will work with a pretty wide range of fluids, from ATF to motor oil to gear oil. I’m using synthetic ATF, but I don’t know enough about the pros and cons to make any recommendations. Supposedly 30w oil will make it quieter at idle, but make it harder to shift.
What a process. I was expecting a 6-8 hour job. It should have been. Had I known everything then that I know now, it would have been. In actuality, it took almost 36 hours (maybe twice that if you count internet research and shopping time) spread over 6 days.
The Results: My best ever miles per gallon between fill-ups with my original transmission was 31, with several tanks getting up to 30. On my initial test run I ran into severe traffic due to an accident. It was like a giant 6 lane parking lot. I got off at the first exit I could and took surface streets for the next couple cities. That delayed me enough that I then hit regular rush hour traffic for the rest of the way back to the fuel station. I did not feel optimistic about my mileage. It took 3.5 gallons of biodiesel to fill up after 120 miles, so despite the traffic jam, I set a new record for the truck of 33mpg. Of course I still wanted to know just how high it could go. Next run was at night, so there was no commute traffic to contend with. 103 miles, 2.7 gallons = 38.16mpg. That is better mileage than the average HYBRID (36.3 – average of all hybrid models available; not average of all hybrids actually on the road) In a 30 year old ¾-ton 5500lb V8 full-size truck. 8mpg gain, or 27%, or almost $200 a year fuel savings with current prices and my average amount of driving. At this point its not so much about saving money anymore as just seeing how far I can take it, but its nice to know that as long as I keep the truck more than another 4 years, it will eventually pay off.
Therefore, my advice to anyone who has a vehicle old enough to not have an overdrive is: swap it out. It’s a big job, but it’s worth it.
Since it is geared towards new riders, I feel obligated to share some statistics I just learned - confirming what I have known for many years - about the best ways to stay safe in traffic.
Riding among fast moving two-ton steel machines can be very nerve wracking when you first start out.
The number one fear of most new cyclists in traffic is getting hit from behind by a driver, but it is important to know that this is, statistically, actually the rarest type of accident.
The most common are at intersections and driveways, when the driver didn't see the cyclist - usually because they weren't expecting the bike to be where it was. That's why I (and the official League bike safety classes) recommend riding with the normal flow of traffic.
Riding with the normal flow of traffic means riding in the street, to the right (in America at least), and obeying basic traffic laws, such as stopping for red lights and going the correct way on one-way streets. It means never riding against traffic (facing on-coming cars) and never riding on the sidewalk.
Although it feels much safer to be on the sidewalk, away from the cars, in reality most accidents happen at driveways and intersections, and a driver is less likely to see you if you are anywhere other than the street.
You reduce your statistical chance of being hit by a car by somewhere roughly on the order of 90% compared to the average rider just by riding predictably, following the law, and being extra visible, because, as it turns out, the vast majority of bike accidents are (at least partially) the cyclists' fault.
So what exactly does riding safely entail?
There are several ways a car and bike can make contact:
Bike is at intersection (or driveway) going straight, car on cross street hits (or is hit by) bike. Much of the time, this is because the cyclist ran a stop sign or red light. Another common reason is because the cyclist was not riding with the normal flow of traffic. Car drivers tend to naturally look only where they expect to find cars coming from, so they don't notice bikes coming from somewhere else. This can also happen because the cyclist did not have a headlight on in poor visibility. A car's headlights don't light up your reflectors from a 90 degree angle.
Solution 1: Do not run lights/signs.
Solution 2: Never ride on the sidewalk, or against traffic.
Solution 3: Use a bright headlight - even in daytime if visibility is poor (even cloudy / overcast) - see the next section, below, for more on being visible.
Bike is at intersection going straight, car comes up from behind, turns right in front of bike
Solution 1: Do not hug the shoulder. Ride as far as a parked car away from the curb, even when there is no parked car there.
Solution 2:Again, do not ride on the sidewalk, as a turning driver won't expect anything faster than a pedestrian to be coming into a crosswalk.
Solution 3: Do not ride in a right turn lane if you are going straight. Cross over to the same lane cars going straight use. Either ride the stripe between lanes, or take the forward lane, depending on the situation.
Bike is at intersection going straight, oncoming car turns left into bike
Solution: Combination of the two above: use bright flashing headlight, even in daytime, and ride out in the lane where you are more visible. Also, pay attention, and be ready to brake at all times. (In the event that this does happen, turning right, with the car, is your best bet to avoid a collision.)
Bike is riding too close to a parked car, driver of parked car opens the door and bike hits it
Solution: Ride several feet to the left of parked cars
Someone asked me the question, what do you do when there isn't enough room to stay far enough from parked cars without getting in the way of traffic? That's certainly not an uncommon scenario. One thing that can help is looking into the rear window of each parked car you pass, to see if it is occupied. This doesn't work at night, or when the sun is behind you and glare is in the windows, or if the windows are tinted, but it works often enough. If the section with limited space is small, and especially if it is either a 2 lane (each direction) road, or has only light traffic, check that no cars are right behind you, signal that you are moving left, and then ride in the center of the traffic lane. Cars will either have to go around you, or wait. This may annoy some drivers, but it is the safest option, and it is legal under those circumstances. Move to the right as soon as it is practical and safe, and wave any cars that have been stuck behind you through.
In the case where there isn't enough room for a long stretch, just ride in the "door zone", but ride slower than normal. This gives you more time to react, and in the unlucky case that you don't see the driver about to get out through the rear window, and the driver doesn't check before they open the door, and the timing works out that it opens immediately in front of you, an impact at 12mph is simply not that big a deal. You might get some cuts and bruises, but running into a car door at 12mph won't break any bones and it certainly won't kill you.
Bike is just riding along, car comes up from behind and clips cyclist
Solution: Don't worry about it. This almost never happens. Seriously. Of all the types of bike/car collisions, it is the least common. For all practical purposes, it never happens. (That being said, there are some things you can do to reduce the risk even further, which I will get to below)
Yet this last one, being hit by passing cars, is the one that ALL new cyclists worry about the most.
Unless a cyclist is riding at night with no lights and no reflectors, it is pretty easy as a driver to see when you are coming up behind one. The one place even distracted drivers tend to be looking is the road straight ahead of them. They have plenty of time to see that you are there. Unlike with a side collision where the driver has very little time to see you and react, if a bike is going 15mph and a car is going 25, the relative speed is only 10mph because you are both going in the same direction.
Drivers rarely randomly swerve side-to-side when driving along a straight road. If they did, they would be constantly clipping the mirrors of parked cars, side-swiping each other, and running up on the curb when there is no shoulder. These things (almost) never happen, just like drivers don't run into cyclists from behind as they are passing them.
Even in the very unlikely case that a car did clip you from behind, it is most likely going to be their rear view mirror brushing your arm. This may, or may not, cause you to fall.
That being said, there are definitely a few skills you should have before venturing into traffic on a bike. As I pointed out just above, car drivers almost never randomly swerve to the right when driving. However, new and wobbly riders do sometimes swerve to the left. Before you venture onto streets with no bike lane or wide shoulder, it is important that you are able to ride in a perfectly straight line. Next, you need to be able to ride in a straight line, while taking one hand of the handlebars (in order to use it to signal your intentions to other road users). And finally, you need to be able to turn your head and look back over your shoulder while riding in a straight line (so you can check for cars before changing lanes or going around obstacles). This may sound silly to experienced riders, who don't remember how challenging that was to learn, and impossible to new riders. It may not be automatic, but it is easier to learn than initially learning to ride a bike, so if you have gotten this far, you can do it. Just spend some time practicing on an off street bike path or a big empty parking lot. Pick a painted stripe on the ground, and try riding on it. When you can ride along a 4" wide stripe without swerving off of it, try taking one hand off the bar and holding it out like you are signaling a left turn, and stay on the stripe, and when that's easy, look behind you and then check that you are still on the line.
I recommend NOT having a rear view mirror. If you are going to change lanes, it is important to actually turn your head and look. A mirror has a limited field of vision, and your own body/head blocks part of that field. Plus, like it says on the sticker, "objects are closer than they appear". If you are not planning to change position, there is no reason you need to know whether a car is approaching you from behind or not. If they are there, or not there, your actions should be exactly the same: don't suddenly swerve out into the traffic lane. Wanting to know if a car is approaching is just a manifestation of the fear of getting hit from behind, but that knowledge can not help you. There is no possible way to tell if the trajectory of a car behind you will have them pass you with 6" to spare, or with clip you with their mirror as they go by - the car is too big, the speeds are too fast, the clearance too small, and the driver could make a course correction at any moment. Therefore, regardless of if a car looks like it is going to pass close, you should simply keep riding in a straight line. You have a much better chance of injuring yourself by diving out of the way of a car that wasn't going to hit you anyway, than you do of successfully avoiding one that would have. But if you need to turn and double check before changing lanes, and if it just makes you paranoid about something you can't do anything about anyway the rest of the time, what purpose does it serve? For the same reason, I find no reason not to wear stereo headphones - there is absolutely no way you can tell whether a car will hit you or not just by sound. Besides, you could be being passed by an electric car, or another faster cyclist, in which case hearing nothing doesn't mean you are safe. Therefore the habit of relying on sound to know if cars are around is a bad one - but I am not necessarily advocating riding with headphones either. In some places it is illegal, in which case you should probably avoid using them.
Because of the importance of not suddenly swerving into traffic, unless you have turned and checked and are sure nothing is coming, it is usually better to just ride over potholes, garbage, glass or other small obstacles in your path rather than going around. When there is an obstacle you can't go over (say, a delivery truck in the bikelane), or you need to cross the main traffic lane to reach the left turn lane, first turn and check if there is space to merge without getting hit, and put your left arm out to signal your intention. Then move over and ride in the center of the lane if you need to, to prevent cars from trying to force their way past you if there isn't room. Then get out of the way as soon as its safe, to avoid agitating drivers unnecessarily, and give them a sign to let them know they can pass.
A bike is considered a vehicle, and you have the same rights and responsibilities as a car driver. As long as you are 1) visible and 2) predictable, it is safe to flow with traffic - even on dense, crowded, or high speed roads.
Uneducated drivers may be annoyed that you are riding in the street in the way you are legally supposed to, they aren't going to hit you deliberately (well, it does happen occasionally - but very very rarely. Still, depending on where you live, it may be prudent to carry a camera...)
Accidents happen because cyclists do things that drivers weren't expecting. That's why it isn't safe to ride the wrong way down the street, or to ride on the sidewalk (getting off and walking is of course always ok)
The best way to keep drivers from coming up way too close to you when there is no shoulder and barely enough room for both car and bike is, counter-intuitively, to move more to the left. Make them change lanes to pass you. If you hug the curb because you are afraid of cars, drivers will take advantage of that and squeeze past. Moving to the left - even if it means taking the entire lane, if you need to to be safe - is legal (but you will have to look it up yourself for your state). Ride like you have as much right to the road as a car driver - because you do!
OK
So, you read all this, and you still aren't convinced. How about some actual stats collected from real life bike crashes?
At first, looking at the data, it doesn't look like this is true as the first two involve a car which should have stopped hitting a cyclist, but if you keep reading to "discussion" you find out that in the vast majority of those cases the cyclist was either riding the wrong way, or on the sidewalk (85%). In the 3rd most common, the cyclist ran a light or sign:
"The three most frequent collisions in Gainesville comprising 82 (51.9%) crashes involve the motorist facing either a traffic control device or merging from a midblock location and the bicyclist on a crossing path. Of these bicyclists, 65 (79.3%) were riding on the sidewalk facing traffic. [emphasis mine]
"These crash types ["Drive Out At Stop Sign," "Right Turn On Red," and "Drive Out At Midblock"] are more likely to occur as a result of riding on the sidewalk."
In other words, the 3 types of common crashes which appear to be the fault of the driver, are all more likely from riding on the sidewalk (regardless of whether going with or against traffic). The next most frequent accident types are clearly the fault of the rider (failure to yield).
"Conclusions/Recommendations... Due to the inherent conflicts at driveways and intersections, bicyclists should ride in the street and not on the sidewalk. "
So now you realize you should always ride in the street, with traffic, and follow the same traffic laws that apply to cars. But as a new rider, its still freakin scary. The only way to get over that is to just do it, and keep doing it until it feels normal.
Think of it like riding a bike for the first time, or just learning to drive.
The second most common reason for bike car collisions, (after the bike rider doing something illegal and/or dangerous), is when a car driver fails to notice a bike - bikes tend to be less visible than cars. They are not only smaller, but they don't have lights built in. But you can fix that.
Legally (at least in CA, but probably similar everywhere) after sunset and until sunrise, you need, at a minimum: Front, rear and side reflectors (all bikes come with them stock - if yours are missing, you can replace them with reflective tape) AND A white, front facing headlight.
A headlight is much more important than a taillight for the same reason you should ride on the street in the same direction of traffic. At night a car's headlights light up your rear reflector, so they can see you with no taillight. But as you approach an intersection, a car on the cross street has its headlight pointed straight ahead - not at you - so they don't see you. You need a light facing them or they can't see you at all.
While any front facing white light is sufficient to meet the minimum legal standard, I strongly suggest that no one skimp on lights, even if you never ride at night.
Even in day light, if it is overcast and cloudy, foggy, shady (like under overpasses or tree lined streets), or the sun is low in the sky, you are much more noticeable to drivers if you have a flashing light on. At a minimum, you should get a light with either 3 or more regular LEDs, or one "super" LED (luxeon or cree), which is powered by either AAA, AA, or a rechargeable battery pack, and which has a flashing mode. These can be found for around $20 online or at any bikeshop, and are bright enough to be seen even in daytime. Lights which run on button cell batteries are not powerful enough to be seen in daylight. It never hurts to augment your main light - I have a little button cell single led on the top of my helmet - but I recommend against using one as your primary light.
In addition, its a very good idea to have a bright, flashing, rear light - again, 3 or more regular LEDs, and/or a luxeon or cree "super" led, running on triple A, double A, or built-in rechargeable batteries.
If you ride at night, even occasionally, it is worthwhile to augment your flashing headlight with something bright enough to actually see where you are going (this also adds very substantially to your night time visibility). This means one or two super LEDs powered by a separate battery pack. Very few self-contained units can match the light output of the battery pack lights. Look for a light rated for at least 200 lumens of output - the more the better.
These normally range from $100 to $300, and the brightest of them compete with a car's headlights in brightness. This may be as much as you spent on your bike, but it also may save your life. Considering that even if you buy the best bike components, you will never come close to the cost of a car, and that a bike can get you places gas-free, it is a reasonable investment.
I got a 1200 lumen (according to the manufacturer) headlight from MagicShine for about $50 from dx.com
Absolutely worth it. The difference is night and day (pun intended). With a 1200 lumen light, you can ride on roads with no lighting, on a new moon, and see your path with total confidence. The only problem is making sure not to shine it in the eyes of motorists and pedestrians. The MagicShine has a terrible mounting system, but everything else about them is great.
A good idea for night riding is to mount one light on your handlebars, and another on your helmet. This way one is always facing forward, no matter what you are looking at, so oncoming and cross traffic cars see you, and you can use the other to look in different directions, or to briefly flash directly at cars that appear to be on a collision path with you and aren't slowing down (like when a car on a cross street passes the crosswalk and stops sticking out in the intersection). I have a red flashing light on the back of my helmet too, where it is up high and moves with the head. You can't have too much visibility.
In addition to your lights, I highly recommend one of those florescent safety green jackets (if the weather is cool) or vests (if its warm).
From personal observation, they are much more noticeable, night or day, then orange or yellow. In day time especially, they stand out even more than reflective clothing. At night color matters less than reflective stripes. With a jacket or vest you can wear whatever clothes you want for when you get to your destination, even a suit, and still have maximum visibility. When you get where you are going, the thin safety jacket or vest stuffs so small you can put it in a pocket.
Between bright lights and a high visibility jacket, (and, of course, riding in the street with traffic) your chances of getting hit by a driver who just didn't see you plummet. At this point, if you want to add helmet lights, reflective tape on your bike and helmet, spoke lights, or a lazer beam bikelane (also available from dx.com) all that is just gravy.
I wear a pair of reflective gloves, (meant for cops directing traffic), so that drivers can see my hand signals at night.
They just happen to be designed with a yellow triangle on the back - perfect for signaling turns;
and a red triangle on the palm - perfect for signaling stops.
So now you know. Apply what you have learned, and your chances of getting hit by (or hitting) a car become far below the statistical average, and you will actually be much safer biking in traffic than you would be driving. Add in the health benefits, and... well, its just obvious, isn't it? Get out there and ride!
The latest meme created by the political Right in order to attempt to justify massive wealth inequality in America, a talking point for the middle class to use, but even more so a subtle reminder to them that they should be grateful towards their social superiors.
It is effective in its simplicity, as good memes and talking points should be. It takes so much for granted that it appears to be impossible to counter – it is in fact an accurate statement – so there is no equally simple one-liner that can refute it. Each and everyone of the underlying concepts that it relies on are false, and so to show the irrelevance of the statement to the issue at hand requires actually delving into and dissecting the assumptions it makes. That is generally not practical in casual conversation, nor on a heavily time restricted televised debate.
But I have as much space as I want here, so, since I have yet to see a thorough analysis of this –frankly – ridiculous statement, I will do so myself, right now:
1)Rich vs. poor is a false dichotomy. “Poor” means those living near or below the federal poverty level, which is roughly $10,000 per person in a household. This is only about the bottom 10-20% of the population.
Above them is the middle class. They include not only 9-5 workers, but most of the self-employed, and a large percentage of those who own small businesses.
Above them is the “rich” – the much talked about “1%” – who have 6-digit incomes, and a couple million in assets. Some small businesses are also owned by the rich.
Above them is the super rich. They do not belong in the same category as the merely “rich”. These are the billionaires. They have so much wealth in existing assets that they could go the rest of their lives without earning another dollar, live lavishly with limos, butlers, yachts, and private security, and still leave trust funds large enough that their children never need to work a day in their lives either. These people are not the 1%. They are the 0.01%. There are only a few hundred of them. As an interesting side-note, while a fairly large chunk of the rich actually got rich by working hard, living cheap, saving their excess income and investing it wisely, nearly half of the super rich got their money by inheriting it.
2)The person who owns a business does not “create” the positions they hire for. The only way that would be true is if people who had too much money started hiring people to dig holes in their back yards, and then hiring others to fill those holes in again. That doesn’t happen. The jobs they hire for are jobs that needed doing. It is the economy – and ultimately consumers, who drive demand – that actually create the need for jobs to be filled. Consumers consist primarily of the middle class. They are creating their own jobs. What form those jobs take can vary. A century ago the vast majority of those jobs would have been in the form of individual family businesses, mostly with just one location, which grew bigger than the family could handle, so they began hiring a workforce. Whether you have a mom & pop corner store, a family restaurant, and an independent coffee shop, or you have a WalMart, a McDonald’s, and a Starbucks, either way the exact same jobs exist. The corporations didn’t “create” any of those jobs, nor did they “give” them to their employees. They simply took over for the small businesses that existed before they arrived. As times has gone on, more and more small businesses have closed as they have been unable to compete with (or bought out by) larger companies.
3)Even with the massive growth of nation-wide and international corporations and the reduction in the small businesses they have displaced, it is still true that 50% of all jobs are created by small business. As noted above, small business is owned by either the middle class or the merely “rich” (as opposed to the super-rich). Small business, by definition, is not nation-wide, and is not a corporation. In other words, not only are major corporations not creating new jobs, they aren’t even hosting ½ the jobs that do exist.
4)In fact, one of the main reasons large business and corporations have a competitive advantage over small business is because of the fact that they are so good at eliminating jobs! There are three main forces that cause the need for American labor to shrink - and all three have become so common that they rarely get talked about any more, even though all three were recognized as problems for the American worker while they first began to develop. They have become so wide-spread and common that we just take them for granted now, but they are bigger problems now than they used to be, and they are the root cause of our current unemployment.
a.Outsourcing – obviously if a company moves its production to another country (almost always for cheaper labor) that means there is less need for workers here, and people get laid off. This used to mean opening factories in other countries, but it now includes a lot of phone support and software development as well.
b.Technology – whether its robots replacing factory workers, computers replacing accountants, RFID toll readers replacing human collectors, or self-check-out replacing cashiers, technology tends to have the affect of eliminating jobs.
c.Consolidation – when one corporation buys out another, they frequently have multiple positions being filled by different people from each of the original companies. One of them is now redundant, and so people get laid off.
5)All three of the previous factors have a couple things in common. One is that it reduces the necessary American workforce, which causes overall unemployment to rise. Another is that all three benefit the company or corporation doing it – they have the same (or greater) output, but their labor costs are reduced, therefore their overall profits increase. Far from assisting the American middle-class by providing jobs, they literally benefit directly from deliberately eliminating jobs. As a bonus, as unemployment rises, competition for jobs increases, which allows employers to lower wages (or reduces cost-of-living increases, which amounts to the same thing) which pushes wages down for all jobs. Again, benefiting the corporation at the expense of the workers. There is one more important thing they have in common – they all require significant capital to undertake. Building a brand new factory overseas is not something a one location family owned business with a handful of employees has the resources to do. Buying state-of-the-art robots to run a factory in the US requires too much spare cash for a small business to make the switch. Buying out all of ones competition, even if its at a loss, can be a very expensive undertaking. There are obviously going to be individual exceptions, but in general these are all things which large companies are likely to do, and which small business is not likely to do.
6)Giant companies are most likely either owned by the super-rich, or they are corporations. Corporations are technically owned by all of their share-holders, which can include anyone with a stock portfolio (much of the middle class). However, shareholders get minimal input into the company. All the shareholders are doing is lending the company their money to use as capital. The decisions of what to do with that money are made by the “Preferred” Shareholders, the board of directors, and most of all by the CEO. These are the people calling the shots, and they are the ones whose job it is to eliminate jobs, thereby increasing profits. So while big business is hosting ½ the jobs purely because of their massive overwhelming size and influence, and having run most of the independents out of business, they are simultaneously responsible for eliminating all of the positions which used to exist, and would still if they weren’t around.
7)As noted above, the thing that allows them to find cheaper ways to replace American workers is excess capital. Tax breaks to big business and stock investment increases their excess capital. And so, ironically, as the middle class votes for policies and politicians that benefit big business with the reasoning that it will come back to them in the form of employment, they are actually helping to eliminate their own jobs, while at the same time creating a government deficit, which ultimately they will pay for, in the form of higher taxes, reduced services (and “services” doesn’t just mean “welfare”; it means roads, highways and bridges, communication networks, clean water, police to combat crime, firefighters to combat fire, elections that aren’t fixed, mosquito abatement, corruption-free court systems, prisons… all that stuff that makes modern civilization work) – or both higher taxes AND reduced services. All to help out the very people in society who need the least help – the handful of incomprehensibly wealthy people who between them hold enough wealth to pay down the entire US debt – not just the deficit, the entire debt – while still leaving all of them millionaires.
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to condense all of that into a snappy one-liner come-back, and since American’s as a whole have shunned intellectuallyness and edumacation, one-liners is what sticks – “a poor person never gave me a job” will stick. And we as a people will continue voting for politicians and policies that allow corporations to do whatever they want, not realizing that what they want is to give the people the ugly end of the shaft. I guess maybe as long as we are going to turn to edutainment for news and talk radio commentators for political and economic analysis, we are just getting what we deserve. Hopefully as our economy collapses around us it will shake the middle class to their senses, and we can start to build a new with a focus on benefiting US citizens as a people instead of profit for profits’ sake when we finally emerge from the rubble.
Question: What can you do to absolutely minimize your fuel use?
Answer: Not drive a car.
As much time and effort as we all put into making our cars and trucks more efficient, [I originally wrote this for ecomodder.com] its easy to forget that even at their absolute best, a motor vehicle is still a pretty inefficient way to get from point A to point B. Even with a 100% efficient engine, which would of course violate the laws of thermodynamics, the machine is still using more energy to move itself around than to move you. In most modern gas powered cars, only about 1% of the energy in the fuel is actually being used to transport you from place to place. With extreme hypermiling, we might raise that to 2%, or even 5%, but the best-case-scenario is pretty awful. There is only one machine which is actually more energy efficient than the mode of transportation God gave us and that is the bicycle. By combining human legs with the power of the wheel and the leverage of gears, it is possible to easily travel over 6 times further in a given time span (or the same distance 6 times faster) than you could with just a pair of shoes. In contrast to the 6x multiplier effect a bicycle has over walking, driving a car only nets about a 4x multiplier in speed/distance compared to a bike. Given that this is ecomodder, chances are that many readers probably fall into one of two categories:
1) People who already bicycle to work everyday, and as much as possible for errands (perhaps for all trips below 5 miles?)
2) People who want to bike to work everyday, but have a good reason why they can’t (but still ride for short trips whenever possible!)
The reasons for not doing it are usually distance, weather, traffic, and/or needing to carry a large amount of people or stuff. (UPDATE – Or, “I don’t own a bike” – in which case please read this article) And I get that. I own 2 motor vehicles myself. There would be no reason to be on ecomodder if we had no motor vehicle to mod. But May is National Bike Month, and for just one day this month, one day out of the entire year, I challenge everyone from the second category to try cycling to work, no matter how good your excuse is the other 364 days a year. If that means you have to bring a change of clothes and wash off with a cloth in the bathroom because there are no showers, transport stuff to the workplace (laptop, work tools, whatever) the day before, get up an hour and a half earlier, invest in a super bright headlight and taillight to stay safe, or even if it means buying studded tires so you can ride through the snow, do it. If it is still an insurmountable challenge, you could try taking public transit part of the way and biking the rest, or if there is no transit, you could even drive halfway with your bike in the trunk, park, and bike the rest of the way. You would still be cutting your fuel use in half for that commute, reducing your impact on air quality, saving money, and getting some exercise. (You should spend at least 30 minutes exercising everyday anyway, so when you look at it that way, you could actually be saving time.) One way or another, no matter how inconvenient it is, just this one day, give it a try. And even though it is called “Bike to WORK Day”, it doesn’t really have to be to work. You can bike to school, the supermarket for groceries, or where ever you have to go that day. If you don’t need to go anywhere that day, it can be another day the same week. Or at least in the month of May. At some point in the month of May, use a bicycle as a means of transportation to somewhere you needed to go anyway. Bike To Work Day, originally created by The League of American Bicyclists, is a tradition going back 56 years. In the majority of the country it falls on Friday, May 18th, so you have a little time to get ready. (EDIT: this was posted a week later than intended, for administrative reasons. So you don’t have much time after all. And everything in the next paragraph is now past tense) In a few areas it is celebrated on a different date; in the San Fransisco Bay Area (including Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, and the rest of the 9 county metropolitan area) it is coming up fast: Thursday, May 10th! As usual we, the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, will be providing energizer stations all morning with free goodie bags for everyone on a bicycle, as well as a free pancake breakfast at Oakland City Hall, where we will also be providing free valet bike parking all day for anyone who works in the area or wants to catch the train from the 12th St Station. After work there will be a bicycle block party from 5:00pm to 8:30pm at Ninth and Washington Streets in Oakland. (Sure, you may have to get up 2 hours earlier to bike to work, but I’ll need to get up by 4am to get to Oakland city hall by 5:30am, and then I’m working until at least 8:30pm. So no complaining. Its only one day a year…) For a list of whats going on in your own neck of the woods, contact your local Bicycle Coalition, or check in at any local bike shop. Or just Google “bike to work day” plus your own city or county name. You can also find many events on the League’s website. In the even that there are none, you can create one for your local area yourself, and then post info about it on their website. It will take some time until we get there, but hopefully someday our future will look just like this:
Jacob Aziza / Bakari Kafele; Ecomodder / Hypermiler
by Bakari Kafele on May 2, 2012
Good morning fellow ecomodders, hypermilers, and efficiency enthusiasts of all kinds. The EcoModder blog has been inactive for over a year (save Tim’s two most recent updates), and I have been asked to help pick it up again. So, since I also have not been active on this site for nearly a year, to start I thought I would re-introduce my self: My name is Bakari Kafele. My internet screen name (or at least one of them) is Jacob Aziza. You may remember me from such internet sites as the EcoModder Forum and Instructables.com I have an old (1983) full-size truck with a 6.9L diesel V8 that I use for deliveries and hauling and occasionally towing. It would be a monstrosity for a commuter vehicle, but it’s about the smallest thing that could serve my work needs – most people hauling large or heavy loads (see below) would use a box truck, a flat bed, or maybe even a dump truck. At the very least an F-350 or equivalent1-ton pick-up. So, depending on how you look at it, getting 15 miles per gallon, (as I was five years ago), could be considered decent, given the type of work being asked of this old truck – 15 mpg being what I measured I was getting, which coincided more or less with what most people report getting in the same make model and year truck. Then, in 2008, I read an article about Wayne Gerdes…
I found it to be revolutionary and inspirational. It was one of those moments where it seemed like the idea should have been glaringly obvious all along, and yet somehow never occurred to me. Slow down, accelerate with moderation, coast early instead of braking last minute. Obvious stuff, right? While I had always been environmentally conscious (I was running the truck on biodiesel most of the time, and my personal transportation was – and is – mostly done by bicycle), I had also been a speed enthusiast in my youth. The only reason I gave up on casual street racing, drifting, and other performance and trick driving in my Honda Civic was that I totaled it when I attempted to take a tight turn (the sign recommended 20MPH) at 55MPH. I never put two and two together; never recognized the direct correlation between driving habits and resource consumption. After reading the article, my driving habits underwent a 180 degree turn. Despite having once received a letter from the DMV warning me that I was one point away from a suspended license, I now started driving below the speed limit, anticipating stops, and even coasting. And after a few months, I was pulled over by the CA Highway Patrol once again. Not that driving 50MPH on a 65MPH highway is actually illegal in CA; but because EVERYONE speeds here, all the time, the officer assumed I must be intoxicated to actually drive below the speed limit. When I passed the breathalyzer, I was free to go. I found that to be a (tragically) funny thing – I am surrounded by people breaking the law. I am the one person NOT breaking the law. And I am the one who gets stopped by law enforcement, because it is suspicious that I am not breaking the law like everyone else. I thought that would be an interesting story to share, especially with people who were also trying to get the best possible fuel mileage from their own vehicles. So I went online, and tried to find out if there were any discussion boards specifically dedicated to this “hypermiling” thing. And that’s how I discovered: EcoModder.com Wow. A whole new level. Not only were there dozens of more in-depth secrets to driving technique, but people were actually modding their cars – not to make them faster or look cooler – but to actually make them more efficient. Revolutionary, mind-blowing, and in the end as it turned out, life changing. I won’t chronicle the entire process here, because I already did in the forums, as it was happening. During this process a friend of mine (and fellow mechanic at the bikeshop I work at) convinced me to write about my truck mods for Instructables.com. They happened to be doing an energy efficiency contest at the time, which I entered and took second place in, winning a T-shirt! But even better, the founder and CEO of the company noticed my contest entry, and personally hired me to do a little work at his home. How cool is that? Throughout this time period, I had also been writing my own personal blog, and one of the founders of faircompanies.com, Kirsten Dirksen, happened to run across my article on anthropogenic global warming, in which I argue that the evidence is still inconclusive, but we should be acting as though it is true regardless of what science eventually finds. She asked if I would post some of my content on their website, which I began doing. About a year or so later she emailed me saying they were taking a trip to the US (from Spain) and asking if I would be willing to be interviewed on camera. I was still new to hypermiling and hadn’t started ecomodding when the video was taken, so while I did mention driving the smallest vehicle that meets ones needs, fuel efficiency, and bicycles, the portion on my small home got most of the attention. As my ecomodding habit began, since I was already posting eco related content to the Faircompanies website, Kirsten followed the development of the truck, and its transition from 15mpg to up to 30mpg. The next time she came to the US, several years later, she requested a follow up interview – and the new video which came out recently is all about hypermiling and ecomodding.
That brings us to today. I recently looked into replacing the rear differential, as was suggested to me in the forums, but it turns out the 2.73 and 3.08 were never made for the stronger 8 lug / F-250+ wheels. So I’m back to wanting to replace the transmission with one that has overdrive to lower my highway RPMs, but I haven’t found a diesel ZF with the granny gear yet. I’ve been getting slightly lower mileage than my peak, just over 25 miles per gallon over the past 6 months, VS 29MPG average over the 6 months before that – but still a whole lot better than the 15MPG I started out at. I suspect this is mostly due to having re-installed the alternator after my onboard 120v charger died, and being lazy about pulse and glide (as in, not doing it at all). Between the video coming out and writing here, I’ve been more motivated to get my mpgs back up. I’ll let you know how that goes. UPDATE – I recently replaced all four tires with the General Grabber HTS, which is one of only two brands that is supposedly low rolling resistance in a tire with a 120 load rating. I have only had them on about a week, so its too soon to say if/how much they will help (they are replacing on/off road tires in back, and dangerously worn road tires in front) – but what I can say is that the first time I drove with them fully inflated (the shop of course only inflated to 50 – even though I specifically asked them to go to the sidewall max of 80PSI) it was so easy to turn the (manual) steering wheel that for a split second I actually thought there might be something wrong. I had gotten used to the old tires, and these ones turn with so little resistance that it feels like power assist by comparison. That feels like a good sign to me. I also just received my new battery charger (yesterday!) so I can take the alternator belt back off. Between the two, I’m hoping to hit my 5th 30+mpg tank average – and then keep it there. We’ll see…
As I am very sure that anyone who has found this blog is already aware, me and my work truck were recently featured on TreeHugger, Huffington Post, HighT3CH, and Faircompanies.com, among others, for my new video (shot, edited, and posted to Youtube by Faircompanies' Kirsten Dirksen)
It is 14 minutes long, which is long by modern internet video standards, but still was only enough time to provide a little snapshot into the entire concept. I've been crawling the web for the various re-posts and the comments on them. Not surprisingly, given how unorthodox everything I'm doing is and how unfamiliar the general public is with the idea of hypermiling, there are a lot of questions and criticisms and misconceptions. First, I'm not in or from LA. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Also, the grill block is not made of concrete!! :P That error is just bizarre. I wrote to treehugger's editor about it, but I haven't heard back yet... [update: he wrote back, and fixed it]
Some of the more common questions and comments I have noticed follow:
Why don't you just use a smaller truck (or, "I get better mileage than that in my compact truck")?
What you see in that video is just one random day. On other days I have to move a couple tons of soil or concrete, or the entire contents of a 1-bedroom apartment including furniture:
I recently had to move an original painting that was 5ft x 8ft. Being able to lay it down flat with the cover on allowed me to transport it safe, clean, dry, and out of the wind and direct sunlight from the artist's home to the gallery. Monday I will be needing to get several full size sheets of plywood, which can only lie flat in a full bed. While most would put loads this size into a box truck or a flat bed, or even a dump truck, I am using a 170HP full-size pick-up. When you look at it this way, my truck could be considered small.
Of course, if you aren't a hauler, there is no reason you should be driving a full size truck. Everyone should use the absolutely smallest vehicle that meets their needs. For the majority of Americans that probably means a compact car, or even a motorcycle.
The point of the video isn't the specific number "30". The point is that it is 15mpg better than when I started. The same can be done with any vehicle. If you are currently getting 30mpg, apply the same ideas and you could be getting 45. If you drive a Prius, you should be getting at least 70. But since most Prius drivers drive like regular Americans, the real world reported mileage is closer to 45.
The best example of the same ideas applied to a small car is the Aerocivic
100+mpg in a regular old, non-hybrid car with no special engine technology.
Doesn't it take more fuel to start than it does to idle? No. No it doesn't.
That is an incredibly common misconception, that was started back before fuel injection and computer controlled engines were invented. Even back then, it was likely only true for idling under 45-60 seconds, especially if the engine wasn't warm yet. It certainly was never true for idling 5 minutes while you wait for the person you are picking up to come downstairs, or even at a 2 minute long stoplight.
In a modern car, if you are at a stand still for more than 10 seconds, you are wasting more fuel by idling than it takes to start the car again.
The moral of the story is this: NEVER IDLE. You are getting 0 mpg. You are not getting anywhere any faster. It is about the same as taking a dollar bill out of your pocket and lighting it on fire. Both in that it wastes your money, and that it causes unnecessary pollution.
Do not start your car until after you are fully settled, seat belt is on, foot on the brake, and you are ready to put it in gear and go. Modern cars do not need to warm up. There is literally no benefit to warming up a car before you start driving. If you have to wait for someone to run in the store "real quick", turn off the engine. If you know that the stop light you are at is extra long, shut the engine. While you are waiting in the drive-through, shut the engine... Actually, no! Just park, and get out! Seriously, how lazy can we get? It's a few feet to walk from the parking lot to the door. You get at least a tiny bit of exercise to burn off what you are about to eat. And you'll get your food faster, because the line at the drive-through is longer than the line inside. But I digress...
You are going to wear out your starter / clutch Maybe, eventually...
First, it takes much less force to start the engine once it is already warm than it did first thing in the morning.
Second, if done correctly, bump starting uses very little clutch (and no starter). The trick is a technique called double clutching - very similar to the technique used by semi-truck and race-car drivers. Basically, when used in hypermiling, you shift into the highest gear and very briefly 'tap' the clutch up until it just barely engages, and then immediately depress it again. Instead of fully engaging the engine with the wheels, you just 'bump' the engine a partial turn. When the engine is warm, this is enough to re-start it. Once it starts you step on the accelerator enough to match the engine RPMs to the transmission RPMs, and when they match (or close to it) you then release the clutch again. This entire process takes place in about a second. If you look closely, you can see me doing it at 5:02 in the video.
It may be that in the long run the clutch and/or starter lasts a few months less than they would have otherwise. If you buy a replacement starter from an auto parts store, they come with a lifetime warranty. I've had to replace a couple (long before I started shutting the engine to save fuel), and all you do is walk in with a faulty starter, tell them your phone number (because I had lost the receipt but they keep records in the computer) and walk out with a new starter (also with the same lifetime warranty.) So for the cost of replacing the starter just once you get a lifetime of starting it at every stoplight. As far as the environmental impact, the starters you buy are refurbished, and the old one you turn in for the deposit is refurbished in turn.
Given that hypermiling saves hundreds or even thousands a year as well as preventing an equivalent amount of pollution, the occasional odd extra starter is more than worth it.
Accelerating takes more fuel than driving steady state, so why do you repeatedly accelerate and then coast - doesn't take that more fuel? Accelerating does take more fuel than driving steady, and so that is an understandable confusion. If car engines were 100% efficient, (or even remotely close to it) then the hypermiling technique, known as "pulse and glide" (P&G) would use more fuel than driving steady.
But engines are not 100% efficient. The basic laws of physics dictate that no heat engine (which includes everything from gas and diesel engines to steam engines and coal power plants) can ever be 100% efficient. No matter what technology produces in the future, any flammable fuel powered vehicle (including natural gas, biodiesel, anything that burns) will waste some of its energy on heat.
In a typical gas engine, efficiency is only around 25%.
In order to understand how much internal resistance is in a car engine, try this: -Park on a perfectly flat area. Make sure there are no parked cars, small children, or cliffs in front of you. -Turn off the engine. -Put the car in neutral and take off the parking brake. -Get out, and try to push the car. You will be able to. No matter how small you are, and how big the car is, you will be able to move it (albiet slowly) on flat ground in neutral.
-Now put the car into gear (engine still off) -Get back out and try to push it again. You will not be able to, no matter how big and strong you are.
The difference you feel between the first try in neutral and the second in gear, that is the engine's resistance to turning. Every time the engine is on, it has to overcome that internal friction with each and every rotation it makes - and it makes about 100 rotations every single second!
In other words fully 75% of the energy in the fuel is used just to overcome internal resistance, to turn the engine itself. That's why it gets so hot (and why it needs a radiator). 75% of the money you spend on gas is not used to move you and your car around, it is used to make your engine hot.
On top of that, belt driven engine accessories and drivetrain losses absorb another 5-10% of the energy in the fuel.
That means all together, when the engine is running, well over 3/4 of the energy never even reaches the wheels. And that is in optimal conditions, at the peak of the BSFC curve!*
Any time the engine is off, you are not wasting that 85%.
As noted earlier, accelerating takes more energy than steadystate driving, however, the internal losses don't change (a significant amount) in acceleration vs stead state.
So, if you can P&G with a 1:3 ratio (10 sec pulse, 30 sec glide) the engine is off 3/4 of the time. Over that 40 sec span, the 85% of potentially wasted fuel energy is conserved. In order for that not to save fuel compared to stead state, it would have to require 4x more fuel to accelerate - and of course that is before even taking into account pumping losses or the fact that acceleration puts the engine in a more efficient part of the BSFC curve. *(BSFC refers to the fact that an engine is more efficient at some speeds and loads than others. The peak is where you get the most torque for the least fuel, and what RPM and throttle position that corresponds to varies from one car to another, but it is always at least slightly more efficient during acceleration)
While coasting is more efficient in any car, it shouldn't be done in many cars. Most cars with an automatic transmission should not coast at high speed or for large distances, as the engine circulates the transmission fluid that lubricates and cools the transmission. Cars with a turbo charger should also be wary of turning the engine off during transit. And of course, unless you have a very old car or have modified it, turning off the engine will change the steering feel and limit the number of power assisted stops (more on that later)
Driving slow is illegal
Driving excessively slow is illegal in some places. Laws vary from state to state. In my state it is not illegal to drive at 45mph on highways. I am not aware of any state which has minimum speed laws higher than 45mph. In fact, the maximum speed for commercial trucks in my state is 55mph - only 10mph higher than the lowest speed I go. (Anything slower than that does not increase efficiency anyway, because it requires shifting to a lower gear, which raises engine RPM. In most modern cars optimal speed is between 50 and 60mph, give or take.)
When there is a specific minimum limit, it is usually (but not always) marked:
In practice its rare for drivers to drive below the maximum speed limit, but it is important to remember that the number on the sign is just that: a MAXIMUM. It is not a requirement. It is not even a recommendation. And it is most certainly not a minimum.
If where you live there are highways that have a minimum speed of 50 or 55, I don't recommend driving slower than that.
For many vehicles, driving slower than that offers no benefit anyway. Various factors determine the optimal speed for each vehicle; primarily how the transmission is geared, followed by how aerodynamic it is. Optimal speed will usually be at whatever speed the transmission shifts into its higher gear (or the lowest RPMs in high gear without lugging, in the case of a manual). For most modern cars this will be somewhere in the range of 45mph to 60mph. Unless you have a very old vehicle, its unlikely you will gain any benefit driving slower than that.
Driving slowly is dangerous
This misconception is almost as common as the myth that it takes more fuel to start than it does to idle. And like that one, it is understandable how it got started: Some traffic studies have found an increased accident rate for drivers driving below the average speed of drivers around them.
But here is the really important part: Studies have also found that the rate of accidents that involve INJURY OR FATALITY goes down with a decrease in speed.
In other words, driving slow will increase the risk that you get a dent or scratch on your nice shiny car. At the same time, it will also decrease the risk that you die in a fiery car crash!!
So, given that there is a trade off, you have to ask yourself: "which would I rather avoid: a dent - or losing a limb?" Driving fast is the single biggest factor in injury and fatality accidents - more than drinking, more the cell phones, more than teenage drivers. Speed has an exponentially bigger impact on accident severity than the weight of the vehicle. In other words, driving 45 in a compact car is safer than driving 75 in a big SUV. This is due to basic laws of physics, so it will never change, no matter what new safety features come out. I could go on, but I already dedicated an entire blog entry to the topic, so if you are still unconvinced, you can see the math as well as the traffic study references there: http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/03/slow-down-my-philosophy-for-life-also.html
The fact that everyone around you is breaking the law, wasting gas, and endangering their lives, does not legally or morally obligate you to also break the law and endanger your own life to avoid inconveniencing them. Even if every single other person on the highway is speeding, it is still all of them who are in the wrong.
You are interfering with traffic Good hypermiling takes road and traffic conditions into account, and changes appropriately. In the video I am driving on a 4 lane highway with light traffic. On a 4 lane highway there is no possible way for me to impede traffic. I think this is common knowledge: The left-most lane is considered the "fast" or "passing" lane. The right-most lane is the "slow" or "merging" lane. If you want to drive fast you should be in the fast-lane. Kind of makes sense, right? But the law says the maximum speed limit is 65mph (on most highways in my area, replace that number with whatever is your local limit). That means the fastest car in the fast lane should be going 65mph. That is the law. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules. This means that every lane to the right of the left most lane should be going slower than 65mph, with the slowest traffic in the right most lane. On a 4-lane highway, no one should be going significantly faster than me in the slow lane. If they want to pass, they can change lanes.
In heavy traffic, hypermiling strategy changes. I didn't happen to get stuck in any, so you don't see an example of it in my video, but someone else has made an excellent video with an example of how to drive efficiently in heavy traffic:
(click through to the original youtube page to see an excellent write up by wbeaty, the person in the video)
As you can see in this video, the act of driving efficiently actually makes traffic SMOOTHER for everyone behind you. It is everyone else's erratic and aggressive driving which actually causes (or contributes to) the traffic jam in the first place. If everyone drove this way, everyone would get where they were going much faster, much like walking in a calm single file line will get you out of a burning building faster than trying to shove everyone else aside.
True, coasting to a stop light sometimes agitates drivers behind me who are used to driving full speed toward red lights and then hitting the brakes at the last moment. But they would have had to come to a full stop anyway, so being "stuck" behind me is costing them zero seconds of time. Do I feel bad for forcing them to save a little gas and help their brakes last longer? I do not.
Isn't it illegal to turn the engine off while you are moving? I might well ask you whether it is illegal to drive 66mph in a 65 zone, or to cross the street in the middle of a block with no crosswalk. No, no, no, I'm not suggesting that this is a stupid and unenforceable law... What I will say is that law varies from state to state. In some states it is legal to coast in neutral, as long as the engine is on. If you happen to live where that is the case, P&G is still beneficial, even if you coast while the engine is idleing (although not by as much). (This is also important to note because automatics should not coast with the engine off at high speeds or for long distances) In other states there is no rule about whether the engine is on or off, but you aren't supposed to be in neutral - but that doesn't mean you can't hold in the clutch while still leaving the transmission in gear.
What is perhaps even more important than the finer technicalities of the law is whether or not it is safe. As noted earlier, by driving well below "normal" speeds (i.e. slightly above the legal lower limit) hypermiling is already much safer than regular driving. In addition, to avoid having to brake, all hypermilers leave large following distances between them and the car ahead. This, obviously, increases safety by a huge margin. Finally, by being constantly aware of the road, conditions, and other vehicles around you, very little takes you by surprise.
There are no accidents. There is only negligence.
Regarding having the engine off specifically: in most modern cars both the brakes and the steering are enhanced with help from the engine. This is because Americans are incredibly lazy and spoiled. I'm sorry. I shouldn't rant. Power steering just really bugs me. I mean, really really really bugs me. It is so stupid. It is not hard to turn a steering wheel with a manual steering gear. I mean, not even a little. My first "car" was a 15ft long camper van with manual steering. My current work truck has manual steering. The ONLY time it is even slightly difficult is parallel parking. Then it is some effort. Nothing like running a 5k or bench pressing 100lbs, but it is more than no effort. 99.9% of the time behind the wheel is not spent parallel parking. So, in order to avoid having to put in a little bit of effort 0.1% of the time, car manufactures build in a complicated expensive system that sucks up 1-3mpg at all times. It is hard to find a car, even an entry level model, that doesn't have power steering standard. It is perhaps a reflection of us as a society that we are so fat and lazy that even after having had a gas engine do all the work of moving us from one place to another, we can't even be bothered to take the effort to turn a wheel in order to park the machine. [end rant]
Where was I? Oh, right... shutting off the engine will take away the power steering. The steering wheel will still work, but you will definitely feel the difference. The best way to avoid that, (and improve your mpg at all times, any maybe even build a tiny bit of muscle during your daily drive), is to simply remove your power steering. This is easier than you may think. My girlfriend did it on her own, with basically no previous mechanical experience.** Basically you need to do just two things: 1) disconnect the lines from the pump goes to the steering axle, and 2) remove / replace the engine belt with one that bypasses the pump pulley.
As far as the brakes go, there is a reservoir of brake boost, so after you cut the engine there is still brake assist for at least 1, usually 2 or 3, good hard brake pumps, enough for a panic stop in an emergency (which is less likely to happen if you are driving slow and have a good following distance, but its still better to have the option)
The last potential issue is turning the key too far, and locking the steering wheel. I don't recommend turning the key one click too far and locking the wheel while moving. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and word that a little more strongly: Don't do that. That would be bad.
All that is for a typical, unmodified car. I have modded my truck specifically to accommodate engine off coasting. My brake booster is electric. My steering is manual (I actually installed a factory original manual steering gear, as it was optional equipment when it was sold - in other words, it is all OEM parts, although I personally did the downgrade) I have an engine kill switch and starter on the gear shift column so I don't have to touch the key.
All of this means that all of the control systems function identically whether the engine is off or on, and therefor there is no increased risk from coasting.
**Specifically, she had done 1 oil change, and changed 1 flat tire before tackling the power steering delete project.
Why don't you just buy something newer / better / hybrid / electric?
First of all, there are no hybrid or electric trucks available in the US that can handle the loads I move.
Second, newer vehicles are not significantly more efficient than old ones. They SHOULD be, because engine technology has improved considerably, however those improvements have been used to make cars and trucks heavier, more powerful, and more feature rich. My truck is powerful enough, and I don't need "features".
Third, my truck cost $2000. I spent about another $800 on the mods. And I ended up with a truck that gets better mileage than a brand new truck of comparable capacity would. In fact, it gets better mpg than the average passenger car on US roads gets.
Fourth, by buying used I avoiding having additional mining and energy use in building and transporting another new vehicle. Buying used is (almost) always easier on the environment than buying new, no matter how "green" the product or how "sustainable" the production process.
I think that covers just about everything. I'm not suggesting that everyone go out and do everything exactly the way I did. But I do hope people will think twice about what things they can do differently. Small changes taken by large numbers of people has a greater impact than big changes done by just a few people. If you do nothing differently after reading this besides driving slower and never idleing, I will have made a bigger impact on the world by writing this than I have by all of my biodiesel-solar panel-vegetarianism ways ever could. So help me out. Help out the Earth and the country, and as a side-effect keep a little more money in your own pocket next time you head to the gas station.
