Nissan has delivered a huge surprise in a small package: the Micra hatchback is returning to Canadian showrooms with a starting price under $10,000. That makes it the least expensive new car, priced a whopping $2,000 below its closest competitors.

We’re happy to see another player in the economy car segment, so EcoModder is launching a new forum at www.Micra-Forum.com.

The returning Micra will move into top place (or perhaps tie for top place) as the most efficient model in Nissan’s lineup (not counting the all electric Leaf). Official fuel economy ratings haven’t been released, but the numbers are going to be extremely close to the Versa sedan which uses the same 1.6L drivetrain.  Estimates  are:

• Manual 5-speed: 8.7 L/100 km / 27 mpg (US) city –  6.5 / 36 highway –  7.8 / 30 combined
• Automatic 4-speed: 9.1 / 26 city — 6.7 / 35 highway — 7.8 / 30 combined

Read about how we determined these numbers:  2015 Nissan Micra fuel economy / mileage / mpg (NRCAN, EPA)

Not surprisingly, Nissan is promoting the car’s low price and fun-to-drive factor ahead of its fuel economy.

$10,000 Micra coming to the U.S.?

Nissan says there are no plans to sell the car in the U.S. — however, the company also said that about Canada when Micra production began at its Mexican plant in 2010.  And just six months ago, U.S. auto journalists were invited to test drive a Tenessee-plated Micra (with a supercharged 1.2L, 3-cylinder engine).  At least one reviewer declared it a lot of fun for “an $8000 car.” (See Micra video review.) Other sources point out that since Canada’s safety & emissions regulations are practically identical to the U.S., it may be more a question of marketing rather than regulatory hurdles keeping it from being sold in the States.  Interestingly, a lightly camouflaged New Micra was spotted driving in Los Angeles recently.

Gallery: view more photos of the 2015 Nissan Micra

So, small car-loving Canada gets first crack at the Micra, just as it did with the efficient 2014 Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback (and the Mirage sedan as well).

Head over to Micra-Forum.com for info & discussion about the Micra: fuel economy, specs, reviews, photos & videos, and more.

EcoModder presents another streamlined, high efficiency blast from the past.

Beneath these extensive modifications lies a 1960 Austin Healey “Bug Eye” Sprite.  It was built by EcoModder member Tom Shrimplin as a high-efficiency commuter to take him to work at the Institute for Environmental Research at Kansas State U in the 1970’s.

Tom explains, “I was driving 110 miles per day so I began modifying the Sprite and doubled its mileage over a period of years to a consistent 65 MPG (unheard of in those days).  This was a 1960 “Bug Eye” with an 850cc engine. It turned close to 3000 at 60 mph and gave 33 mpg on average, originally.”

Here’s the same Sprite in “33 mpg” form:

Mechanical modificiations were extensive:

• Engine: the original engine was replaced with a 1600cc engine from a Ford Pinto
• Engine modifications: the camshaft was retarded 2 notches (making a poor man’s Atkinson cycle); electronic ignition was substituted for the original system (in combination with a wider spark plug gap this permitted running a slightly leaner air/fuel ratio); adjustable on-the-fly carburetor from a Briggs & Stratton lawnmower; belt driven cooling fan removed.  Tom says it never overheated, even in summer.  He could run cabin heater fan if the coolant temperature started to climb.
• Tires: new for the time radial tires with lower rolling resistance

• Transmission(s):  a big portion of the mpg improvement came from adding a manual 3-speed Buick transmission inline (but reversed) with the Pinto 4-speed manual, providing 12 forward gears and up to a 2.5 overdrive.  The engine ticked over at just 1100 rpm @ 55 MPH (Nixon speed limit days). Excellent for economy, but requiring more from the driver: “a slight incline required downshifting.”

Here’s the car part-way through its transformation:

Of course, the most obvious mods were of the aerodynamic variety.

Tom checked all the important boxes:

• Frontal area reduction courtesy of a raked windshield
• “Boat-tailing” at the rear
• Re-sizing the cooling opening to suit the reduced engine load
• A set of four fender skirts
• Smooth(ish) hubcaps.

Tom doesn’t apologize for the function-over-form aesthetics: “It was made of junk yard body pieces, pop rivets and bondo.” He painted it bright yellow for safety, because somehow drivers failed to notice the low-slung car streamliner on the road.

Ultimately (after 250,000 miles), the modified car was taken off the road & dismantled. A student got the chassis in exchange for destroying the body. He had a Midget and could use the parts.

Today at 87 years old, Tom is still ecomodding.

A few months ago he added a short aerodynamic extension to his recently acquired 2000 Honda Insight that improved its fuel economy by 5% on a familiar route.  He says he prefers driving the Insight to the old Sprite.

For more information and discussion about Tom’s projects, check out the forum thread on his AeroSprite, or the thread about his Honda Insight.

I am pleased to announce that this week EcoModder gave birth to a brand new forum:

www.MirageForum.com

The more we found out about Mitsubishi’s design/engineering approach to this new car, the more we liked it:

– It’s purpose-designed to be light (~1910 lbs in Australian trim)
– It’s aerodynamic (Cd 0.27 to 0.31, depending on options – above average for a subcompact 4-door hatch)
– It’s efficient (1.2L, 12v 3-cylinder engine with variable valve timing, and a smaller 1.0L available in some markets), with CVT or 5-speed
– It’s safe, having scored 5/5 stars in recent ANCAP crash tests
– Oh, and it’ll probably be fairly cheap to buy, too.

It’s looking possible it may even have the best combined MPG for any non-hybrid available in the U.S. and Canada, which could make it the first non-hybrid to match the Geo Metro’s fuel economy since that car was last sold over a decade ago. (That’s speculation, of course, until we see the official numbers.)

The company is even marketing it in some regions with the tag line “Less is more“. Clearly that’s an EcoModder-compatible design philosophy if we’ve ever seen one. So we decided to make a dedicated site for the new Mirage and see what happens.

The car debuts in North America this week. (In Montreal, for the Canadian market, with fall availability). The U.S. will see it at the New York show in March, with fall availability. It’s launching in the U.K., Australia and N.Z. too, and has been available in southeast Asia since 2012.

Any of that catch your interest? Want to learn more? Drop by and say hello:

www.MirageForum.com

Also see a few EcoModder discussion threads about the new Mirage:

> New Mitsubishi Mirage 3-cylinder coming to the U.S. in 2013

> 2014 Mitsubishi Mirage ecodriving highway run: 75 MPG (US) / 3.1 L/100 km

This is Ecomodder.com.
If you are reading this, you are probably already well aware of the effect that speed has on gas mileage, and you are probably aware of the affect that fuel use has on the environment, national security, and your own wallet.
But in my time in the forums it has been clear that not everyone fully realizes just how dramatic an effect speed has on fuel use, not to mention safety, nor how tiny an effect it has on travel time.  And of course, we all sometimes forget to apply things we already know in daily life.
If this is all review for you, consider this a friendly reminder.

First, a short history lesson:

In October of 1973 a group of nations got sick of the US “foreign policy” of military intervention, and, knowing we had developed a lifestyle totally dependent on oil, they all agreed not to sell us any more.

This caused massive and immediate affects throughout the US economy. Buying fuel, at any price, meant waiting in long lines – on those days you were even allowed to buy gas at all*

The government took steps to encourage conservation – which (unlike sourcing new oil) could be done immediately – such as banning Christmas lights.

Another major step they took was to enact a national speed limit of 55mph.

The reason for this is that at higher speeds air resistance increases exponentially** relative to speed. Going twice as fast requires 4 times the energy. This is as true of modern vehicles as it was in 1973. It will always be true, because it is due to fundamental physics. All vehicles, small or large, gas or alternative fuel, use more energy at speeds above 45mph.

In fact, going from 55 to 70mph typically uses between 20% and 25% more fuel to go the same distance.***
25% is a massive amount more fuel to use – at our current national usage, that amounts to approximately 5 million barrels of oil every single day!
That’s 175 million gallons.
That just happens to almost exactly equal the amount we purchase from the Middle Eastern OPEC nations.
In other words, if we still had (and actually enforced!!!!) a 55mph national speed limit today, that alone would completely eliminate any need for importing oil from the Middle East.

Guess it turns out congress occasionally does something sensible, eh?

Next, a physics lesson:

Similar to the relationship between wind resistance and speed, kinetic energy varies with the square of speed.

Energy=1/2 mass X velocity^{2  ****}

This means that if you are going twice as fast, it will take four times as much force to stop.
In other words, it will take four times the braking distance to stop in an emergency.

If it takes four times longer to stop, you are much more likely to slam into something full force which, at a lower speed, you could have come to a full stop in time to avoid hitting at all.

It also means that if you do end up in a crash, at twice the speed you will have four times the impact force.
At four times the impact, crumple zones and airbags can’t stop your organs from hitting your ribs hard enough to literally explode.

The energy in the previous equation dictates how hard you hit.  Whatever energy isn’t absorbed by the car and restraints, gets absorbed by you.
A lot of people focus on the size of the car or truck they are in, believing a large amount of vehicle mass will absorb more crash energy.
Look at the formula:  that’s half true.
Literally.
The affect of mass gets divided by two.   But velocity is not only factored in fully, it is squared.  In plain English, this means that speed plays an overwhelmingly larger role in how bad a crash is than mass.
And incidentally, going back to the first point – a smaller car has a shorter braking distance at any speed, and so is less likely to crash into anything in the first place.  Ask yourself: Which would you rather do, crash and survive, or not crash in the first place?  This is why crash test ratings do not reflect safety – they only tell you if you will survive a crash, as though a crash were inevitable.  They aren’t.  And as it turns out, drivers of mid-size sedans actually do have less fatalities than drivers of full-size SUVs (along with all other sizes of SUV, all sizes of truck, and even heavier full-size cars.  All of these are statistically more dangerous than mid-size cars, which should be more than enough to dispel the myth that heavy=safe, if only people knew the statistics) .

Buying a big vehicle, and then driving it fast is like getting a diet soda with your super-sized burger and fries.

I realize that almost everyone actually feels they are safe when they are driving a car.
It is human nature to take anything which is commonplace for granted.  We tend to fear things which have an infinitesimally remote chance of happening but receive lots of news coverage but not think about things that really are likely to kill us, but which we don’t hear a lot about.

The number one cause of death of all young people in the US in car crashes. It causes more deaths among young people than murder, suicide, cancer, and heart disease combined. It is the number one cause of death up until age 40, at which point it is still in the top 3.
We don’t hear about it much in the news precisely because it is so common. There are roughly 16,500 accidents significant enough to be reported in the U.S. EVERY DAY. Of these, roughly 1/3 to 1/2 result in permanent injuries. Every 12 minutes, an American dies in a car crash.

Every time you get into a car, you may die.

The number one factor in causing all of these deaths and injuries? It isn’t alcohol. It isn’t teen drivers or cell phones.
It’s speeding.

Speeding is the single largest factor in injury and fatality collisions.

Contrary to popular belief, driving slower is safer even when other cars around you are speeding.*****

Here are two different studies’ conclusions on the issue, after compiling actual accident data:

And finally, a chart from the DHS defensive driving course:

So, ok, by now you are accepting the physics and the statics, and acknowledging that maybe there is a legitimate reason for speed limits, and a very real cost – environmentally, financially, and in lives – to breaking it.

“But… but…
I’m running late!!!!!!!!!!!”

The catch:

There is, of course, an obvious drawback to driving slower: it takes more time to get somewhere.
That is, of course, why people do it.  Who wants to spend more time than they have to sitting in a car?

Time for just a little more math:

Time = Distance / Speed

What does this mean for typical driving speeds?  Here, I’ll do the calculations for you:

1 hour = (60min x 60sec) = 3600seconds
3600 seconds / 65mph = 55 seconds
It takes 55 seconds to go one mile at 65mph.

3600/55mph = 65 seconds

1 mile at 65mph= 55seconds
1 mile at 55mph= 65seconds

Difference = 65-55 = 10 seconds

Slowing down from 65mph to 55mph means it will take you an additional 10 seconds to go a mile.  Ten seconds.  That’s it.
Speeding up from 65 to 75 would only gain 7 seconds.  Going from 75 to 85 saves 6 seconds.  The faster you go, the less time it saves.

Of course, going even one mile per hour over the posted speed limit is a crime.  This is not an opinion, nor is it open to interpretation.  It doesn’t matter if law enforcement chooses not to enforce the law, nor does it matter if “everyone else is doing it”.  Speeding is, in addition to wasting money, natural resources, and human lives, is also illegal, and is totally unacceptable.  Therefore I’ll limit the discussion to whether one drives as fast as legally possible, or slower than that.  Going 10 miles per hour below the posted maximum is legal in every state in the country (in states that specify a minimum at all, it is 15 to 20mph below the maximum).

But when you are tempted to go above the limit, remind yourself that the faster you go, the less time you save.  You can do the math yourself if you have trouble believing that.

A typical drive is 10 miles.  Over a 10 mile drive by driving at the legal maximum instead of 10 under, you will waste 25% more gas (increasing your gas bill by 25%), and increase your risk of death by 60-100%, all to save just a minute and a half.  A minute which you may well end up losing again at a single stop light.  I’m sure you have been passed by a speed demon only to catch up to them a minute later at the red light they raced to (or are you always that speed demon?  Either way, you know what I mean).  I find that even at 20mph under the limit, the ETA estimates that Google Maps and my GPS unit give me are always spot on, if not slightly late.  Both systems assume I will drive at the speed limit, and calculate how long the trip should take based on that.  I often get where I am going sooner than they said I would, even though I drive slower than they expect.

Even on a long drive, say 350 miles from SF to LA, speeding the entire way only saves a little over a half an hour.
That half an hour meant using up an extra 3 gallons of gas, or almost $11.  According to the study quoted above, you also increase your risk of death by up to 100%.

But wait!!!

Here is a real-life story, written by “CBR Shadow”:
” I recently took an 800 mile trip with a friend in my car [A Honda Insight] and we averaged 74mpg on the highway with some hypermiliing techniques (slow lane, try to get behind a truck, etc).  I got behind a full car carrier truck (the holy grail for hypermiling on the highway IMO) and stayed behind him for 50 miles averaging 94MPG!!!

The best part of that trip is that my brother … drove his Nissan Xterra on the same route and left at the same time as us.  He laughed before thet rip about how he’s going to get there way before us because I’m such a penny pincher.  Ends up we beat him there by 5 minutes!  He stopped twice for gas and stopped for food twice, where we stopped for gas once (almost didn’t have to at all!) and brought food in the car.  My brother spent $135 in gas for that trip, where my friend and I split a $40 gas bill :)” [Emphasis mine]

I am not asking you to give up your car and rely solely on bicycles and public transportation.
I am not asking you to buy an experimental electric or alternative fuel car, an expensive new hybrid, or even a smaller more efficient car.
I am not suggesting you go to the lengths I do and remove your power steering pump and alternator, or drive 45mph on the freeway.

All I am asking is that you slow down.  Never, ever, ever exceed a posted speed limit on a highway.******
Leave home on time so you don’t have to rush. It is not up to you to regulate everyone else, so stay in the right lane.  Don’t worry about people who pass you.  It is not a race.  On rural roads be courteous and use turn-outs; but don’t let obnoxious impatient people pressure you into risking a traffic ticket or fatal accident – just move to the right, put on your flashers, and encourage them to pass.  On a freeway there are always at least 2 lanes, so there is no excuse for anyone behind you not to pass if they want to go faster.

If you value your own money.
If you value the environment.
If you value national security and energy independence.
If you value the lives of those around you.
If you value your own life.

You don’t even have to care about all of those things. Any one of them of them is reason enough.

Leave the house 1 and a half minutes sooner, and slow down.

This will not, all by itself, save the world. But if we all do it, it will make a difference.

Thank you.

“No one can cut you off if you choose to slow down and let them in”

*hmm, so maybe Soviet era lines for goods were not caused by the distribution system of communism, but by a plain lack of resources…

**Disclaimer for math and physics people: I know, technically the curve is parabolic, not exponential, but if I used that term no one would know what I was talking about

***You don’t have to take my word for it:

****Mass means the total weight of the car (plus passengers and cargo, etc). Velocity is basically a fancy word for speed.

*****The chance of an accident is higher if you go slower than traffic around you, because of the speed deferential. This is (unfortunately) even occasionally pointed out in some driving courses.  But the chances of a FATAL accident, or even an injury accident, go up with speed, as noted above.  Which would you rather avoid: a low speed fender bender, or death?

******Don’t speed on the streets either – you won’t save gas at 25mph, but you will avoid killing pedestrians and cyclists.  Traffic engineers put speed limits in place for a reason.  You aren’t a traffic engineer.  Trust them on what speed is safe.

[post adapted from one on my personal blog, at http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/ ]

We recently got in a small shipment of new Scangauge suction cup mounts.  So, I grabbed one and figured a review was in order before we start selling these.

The construction of the mount is quite robust.  It has a nice, high quality suction cup design.  It has a lever on it so when you stick it to the surface and pull the lever it improves the suction grip.  The arm that the Scangauge mounts on is quite solid as well.  The ball joint used is nice and sturdy. It is stiff enough so that you can push the scangauge buttons with normal pressure and it does not move.  The adhesive clip that goes on the back of the Scangauge has a very low profile so if you remove the Scangauge in the future its not bulky and obnoxious.

 

Assembly and installation is incredibly easy.  Simply clean the back of your Scangauge with the provided alchol pad, wait for it to dry, and then stick the adhesive backed clip on the back of the Scangauge.

 

Next, assemble the ball end of the mount with the small rectangular mounting clip.  Now, you’re ready to install the mount where you want.  Stick the suction cup to the surface of your choice and move the lever on the mount down.  Then, just slide the clip on the back of the Scangauge into the rectangular mount.

I did find out that you can very easily remove the mounting arm from the base and flip it around.  It won’t lock into place with the teeth anymore, but it is not an issue as it still stays in place just fine.  I had to do this with my setup to get it to fit in the small window and its pocket.

So far I have been using the mount for about a week and love the versatility it gives for mounting locations.  My scangauge is now in a much more convenient place and I don’t have to take my eyes as far off the road to look at it.

If you are interested in picking up one of these mounts you can head over to the EcoModder store.

Image credit: James & Vilija

One of EcoModder’s founders (a former driving instructor) recently gave an in-car ecodriving lesson to a “normal” driver — someone who’d never even heard the word “hypermiling” before.  He described how demonstration and coaching significantly improved her city MPG.  Below is a shorter version of a forum discussion describing how he laid out the session, and the student’s results…

Many moons ago I used to teach in-car defensive driving. One of the 15 lesson plans in the course supposedly focused on fuel-efficient driving techniques. (I say “supposedly” because if the driver was still having a hard time with the basics like successfully turning corners, the instructor wasn’t going to be spending much time talking about preserving momentum and the finer points of “driving without brakes”!)  But that was ages ago, and the overwhelming majority of the kids going through the course didn’t really care about saving fuel anyway.

I tell you though, it sure is nice teaching someone who is genuinely interested in the subject, and I did that today for the first time in forever.

The student:

A retired newspaper reporter – a member of a local environmental group interested both in saving money and reducing fuel consumption for ecological reasons.

Her car:

2004 Toyota Echo (Yaris) sedan, 1.5L, automatic
E.P.A. rating: 28 MPG (US) city / 36 MPG (US) highway

The route:

A ~15-minute long city loop that included lots of turns and traffic lights

The execution:

I asked her to bring the car fully warmed up. I plugged in a ScanGauge, set the engine displacement and reset the trip meters.

And… we’re off!

Lap #1:

She drove first to establish a baseline, with no coaching at all. I asked her to drive “normally” and kept a good conversation going so she wouldn’t subconsciously focus too much on driving “nicely”.  I really had to bite my tongue to keep from giving her pointers along the way.

Lap #1 results:

She did pretty well! 30.8 mpg (all US gallons) put her already 3.8 mpg / 14% above the city EPA rating! But I spotted a few obvious bad habits that could be tuned up.  (She could have benefited from increased following distance, for example.)

Intermission:

Tire pressure check! The placard for the Echo was 32 PSI all around, and the tire’s max. sidewall inflation was 44. They weren’t horrible, ranging between 24 & 36 PSI. I split the placard/max. difference and set them all to 38, warm.

Lap #2:

I drove the route, all the while giving a running commentary describing the fuel-saving techniques I was using. I didn’t do anything fancy or scary – no howling tires through high-g turns, no shutting the engine off (though I did shift to neutral for long lights). Mostly it was plenty of anticipation & planning, “driving without brakes”, and timing the traffic lights.

Lap #2 Results:

37.2 mpg, or 33% over the car’s EPA city rating.

Lap #3:

She took the wheel again, but this time I coached her as we repeated the route.

Lap #3 Results:

34 mpg, or 21% over EPA.

Post game discussion:

She really enjoyed the session, and did quite well.   With coaching she saw how she could beat the EPA by 21%, and improve from her Lap #1 baseline by 10%.  Who wouldn’t be happy knowing how to get 10% more out of a gallon of gas?

The high point — her  “aha!” moment when the light bulb went on in a big way — happened while coaching her toward a very stale red light.   We were in the left lane, and there was a line of 4 cars stopped ahead of us, but only 1 car stopped in the right lane. We had been coasting for a while, and I suggested a lane change to the right would give us more coasting room, and the light might just change before she even needed to brake. Sure enough, it worked perfectly and we ended up gliding past a gaggle of stopped cars that had sped away from us at the previous light. Classic ecodriving!

We reviewed the main points, and reviewed the numbers. This showed her that even though she was already probably an above average driver, reducing fuel use another 10% was easy, and 20% was within reach. I suggested she get an MPG gauge to keep her motivated. She took notes, but I also emailed her a “report card” afterward.

We also spent about 30 seconds discussing highway efficiency tactics: dead simple – slow the eff down.

The whole session took an hour and 10 minutes.

I had fun too.  I’ll probably do more of these sessions with other members of her environmental group, maybe once every week or two.

—

Read the complete discussion about this ecodriving session in the EcoModder forum: Have you ever given 1-on-1 ecodriving instruction? (Here’s how I did it.)

When people think about fuel economy, they usually think about small cars, perhaps a mid-size hybrid.  If they think about trucks, its usually to contrast them with a more efficient vehicle (and perhaps chastise truck owners for their wasteful choice).
But while cars are great if you need to get yourself and maybe a few other people from one place to another, they don’t excel in moving large amounts of stuff, and can’t tow very much.
If you regularly need to move lots of big, bulky, or heavy stuff, or tow something large and heavy, but rarely need to move more than a couple people, a truck makes a lot of sense.

Of course there is a reason that trucks are seen as inefficient: they are.  They are heavy, overpowered (although cars are even more so these days), and not at all aerodynamic.

Then again, because trucks get such low mileage to begin with, improvements in their mileage have a relatively bigger impact.  For example, an increase of 15mpg for a 45mpg car is a 33% increase and will save 55 gallons of fuel over 10,000 miles.  Not bad, but that same 15mpg improvement to a 15mpg truck is a 100% increase, saving 333 gallons over the same distance.

So what is a mpg-conscious person who needs to move a lot of stuff to do?

The classic question was whether its better to drive with the tailgate up or down – the reasoning being that the tailgate might be catching the air coming off the roof like a parachute, being a flat vertical surface and all.  It turns out though that (at least for most trucks) that at speeds an air bubble naturally forms in the truck bed of an open bed pick-up with the tailgate up, and that creates a virtual tonneau which deflects the air current over the gate.  With the tailgate open, that bubble can’t form, and aerodynamics is actually decreased overall, reducing MPGs along with it.

(image from: http://johnversteeg.com/projects/2 )

(image from: http://www.symscape.com/blog/tailgate-up-or-down )

It’s important to note that this does not seem to be universally true; while the MythBusters and some (better controlled) studies have found better fuel economy with the gate up, other studies have found the opposite: reduced air drag with the gate down.

Which actually shouldn’t be too surprising, given the complexity of fluid dynamics, and the plethora of shapes and sizes and other variables that go into the design of a truck bed, cab, and tailgate, from length of bed and height of cab, to whether edges are sharp or rounded.  In any case, neither shape of truck bed is optimal for aerodynamics, and the potential improvement gained by tailgate position is relatively minimal.

The next step in truck aero evolution is the tonneau.  When installed, it makes the truck bed a solid flat surface at the height of the bed rails and tailgate.

Now instead of a virtual surface closing the truck bed, consisting of a bubble of air, there is an actual surface there, to do the same thing.

Unfortunately, this is still far from the ideal tear-drop shape, and (again, unsurprisingly) while it is frequently seen to improve fuel mileage, it isn’t by terribly much, and it doesn’t consistently show any improvement at all.

The goal is aero-mods is to make a vehicle as close to a teardrop shape as possible.

And while many car designs typically match this shape better than an open bed pick-up truck,

the large bed area (with no particular requirements for headroom) leave a lot of room for modding a cap to make it fit the shape even better:

 

The result is referred to as an “aerocap” or “aeroshell”, and it can potentially give a truck lower air drag than some cars, while providing a covered and secure space to store cargo.

Of course none of this is news to serious ecomodders, and a large number of varying designs have been built, with different solutions to balance the trade-offs of maximum aerodynamics, interior space and accessibility, rear visibility, being securely attached but easily removable (in case on needing to use the truck bed for large items), and looking seamless and integrated.

Here are some of the designs that have been showcased in the ecomodder forums:

AeroHead / ITworks / Phil Knox’s T-100

One of the very first.  Phil has been aeromodding since the oil embargo of the 1970’s.  This particular truck was in the form in the picture in 2005.

Measured coefficient of drag on the stock truck, plus aeroshell: 0.325

For reference, an open bed pick up has a cd around 0.40 to 0.45, a typical car 0.30 to 0.35, and the original Honda Insight had a Cd of 0.25, the lowest of any standard production car.
The lower the number, the less air resistance.

With all of the mods shown in the picture, coefficient of drag dropped all the way to: 0.25

The shell alone caused a 13% highway mileage improvement compared to the same truck at the same speed without it, 27.5 miles per gallon (EPA 25), and with all aeromods it got 32mpg at 70mph.

For more on this truck, see: http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=870

AeroHead / ITworks / Phil Knox’s T-100: V2

 

The original aeroshell was partially eaten by goats (or something like that…)
So he started over, and built another, goat-proof shell, and, as heavily aero-moddified as the first version was, he took the new one even further.
The new shell is made from the hull of a sailboat – you can tell in the first picture, the others are the same, just painted, and later with a window which removes the passenger side blind spot.

Aerohead takes this to Bonneville for racing and setting records and such, so the priority is maximizing aerodynamics over cargo carrying utility (the shell is removable though, so the truck could be used like a truck).

Theoretical Cd of 0.156
almost 80% mpg improvement compared to an original unmodified T-100, at 36mpg highway!

And yet still this was not enough – he has also built a trailer that attaches to the back of the truck just to extend the aerodynamic taper even further!

Wow.  Just wow.
A labor of love with years and years of labor put into it.
For more on this absolutely magnificent monstrosity, see:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/pickup-truck-streamlining-14884.html
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/basjoosing-toyota-t-100-articulated-front-wheel-skirts-22971.html
and
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/full-boat-tail-trailer-gap-fillers-toyota-t-7839.html

Bondo / Brett Herndon’s Aerolid

Ok, so the ITworks T-100 may be a little too extreme for the average pick-up truck owner.
On the other end of the spectrum of customization and labor required by the end user is the very polished and professional looking “Aerolid”.

These are available for purchase.
The long term goal is funding for large scale commercial availability (patent pending), but even without corporate sponsorship, he has already produced several on his own, and has a website up for their sale.

Highway mileage increase (on this truck) of over 20% 18mpg to 22.

For times the truck needs to be used for serious truck stuff, the center section can be removed without removing the entire shell

If a load is just a little too big to fit under the shell, but not so big it has to be removed entirely, it is hinged and can swing up partially; also making it a potential place to hang out while camping.

For more interior space and even better aerodynamics, there is an optional extender kit that is deployed with the tailgate down, which can fold away when not in use

For more on the Aerolid, see his website:  http://www.aerolid.com/
or the ecomodder thread http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/commercially-produced-aerodynamic-pickup-bed-cap-583.html

In between those two extremes the DIYers at Ecomodder have come up with plenty of unique designs:

SkyKing’s aeroshell/boat tail for the Dodge truck “Woody”

Made from laminated plywood sheets on a plywood frame, this design goes further and lower than any other.

26mpg highway from an otherwise unmoddified (except those beautiful wood side boxes) 1-ton.

For more on Woody’s shell, see:  http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/testing-aeroshell-boat-tail-dodge-22354.html

T Vago’s compound curve foam board pickup aeroshell

10% improvement, from 19mpg to 21mpg with no other mods.
Its made of foam, so its very light; which is good, sense adding weight reduces fuel economy, which would be counter-productive.  Also, it makes it easier to take off when the bed space is needed for big bulky stuff.

You can read much about its design process on a previous blog post:  http://ecomodder.com/blog/makings-pickup-aerocap-vagos-dakota/
as well as the forum thread http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/t_vagos-compound-curve-foam-board-pickup-aeroshell-15862.html

BamZipPow’s T-100 Aerocap

Made from coroplast (plastic sheets) over wood and metal frame.
Up to 27mpg highway.

Long thread covering everything from concept to construction to V2 trials:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/another-truck-aero-cap-idea-15137.html

JRMichler’s Nameless’ Canyon topper

Along with other mods, improved mileage from 21mpg to 30mpg in winter, and 27 to 35 in summer, with around 2mpg of that increase specifically upon replacement of the original non topper with this one.
Believe it or not, it is constructed of plain old plywood, waterproofed and strengthened with epoxy, and prettied up with some hardware store paint.

Details at http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/modding-06-gmc-canyon-17070.html

JRMichler’s brother’s Ford F-250

Mileage of 23.5mpg, up from 19.5
Not a lot of information on it is public, but what there is is here:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/modding-02-ford-f250-16798.html

Bajascoob’s Lightweight Aerocap on BigWhiteWhale

In addition to being relatively light, this design neatly solves the issue of reduced visibility created by every single other aerocap design.  The entire thing is completely translucent.
Unfortunately, plastic film isn’t 100% clear, so while he can see headlights behind at night, it isn’t clear enough to allow eliminating outside side mirrors.

Went from 16 to 19mpg.
Made of 1/2″ metal conduit frame wrapped in 4mm film, for a total of roughly $20 material cost.

More here: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/f-250-7-3-4wd-light-aerocap-12573.html

Swede’s Aerolid

Coroplast over a welded 1/2″ conduit metal frame.

13% improvement, from 20mpg to 23.

Read more:  http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/swedes-aerolid-build-thread-13092.html

Kevlar’s aero “Toyota truck” (Apparently in 1992 Toyota didn’t give its trucks model names or numbers?)

Made of fiber-reinforced plastic board panels, the stuff public restroom stalls are made from.
31mpg actual, with an EPA estimate of only 24mpg highway

Since sold – and the new owner is reporting even better mileage, 32-36mpg.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/aero-truck-project-begins-2269.html

Ccrider’s Tacoma Aerocap

1/2″ Plywood on a wood frame.
$45 worth of material, including the paint.
30+ mpg in a truck rated for 20.

Simple, inexpensive, yet the numbers speak for themselves.

Build thread at: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/aerocap-tacoma-pickup-11271.html

Jacob Aziza’s Big Orange Work Truck’s tilted tonneau
(That’s me, the author)

Mine represents the opposite extreme from the first truck in this list, the ITworks T-100 in the trade-off between aerodynamics and the ability to use the truck bed.
Unlike every other design, the cover does not actually start at the roofline.  From an aerodynamic perspective this is a pretty major design flaw – it means that the air flowing off the back of the roof will not continue on smoothly to the cover, but will actually separate, leaving an air space of slower moving and potentially turbulent air right behind the rear window.
I was aware of this when I built it, but I decided it was more important to have a fully unobstructed view to the rear.  I regularly drive this truck in dense city traffic, at lower than normal speeds on major highways, and have to back up down driveways so narrow that I have to fold both side mirrors in.  In other words, I use my rear-view mirror a lot.  And even without a cover, I managed to back-up into a parked motor scooter once.  So I decided to sacrifice optimum aerodynamics and have the bed cover start about midway between the top of the bed and the roof.  I have a rearview mirror mounted just below the ceiling inside, and being higher than the top of the cover means I can see over it right to the edge of the tailgate.  I actually have a better view to the rear than with the stock mirror set up.

My other consideration that required a major trade off in maximum efficiency for maximum utility is that I regularly use the truck to haul things which would not fit under any of the above aerocaps, even the hinged ones if they were at maximum tilt angle.

Some of the aerocap designs have removable tops, or remove relatively easily for those times, but those times are so frequent for me that it would be extremely inconvenient to have to be constantly removing and replacing a cover. Besides for which, living in an RV, I have nowhere to store a large aeroshell when not in use.
Most of the time my trip goes something like: travel to location with bed empty, pick up bulky stuff, transport it to somewhere else, travel home with bed empty.  So if I was going to do anything to make the truck bed more aerodynamic, it had to be something I could remove completely within seconds while in the field, store it out of the way on the truck, and then deploy it again just as quickly for the trip home.
My solution was to take a standard, commercially available roll-up vinyl tonneau cover, and mount it on triangular plywood sheets.  When I need to access the bed, I just roll it up.  If the bed is empty (or carrying little enough) I roll it down, and the built-in rails keep it locked down.  While not the ideal angle, it still lets the air coming off the roof travel down to the tailgate level more gradually.

Vinyl tonneau with metal stabilizers on metal rails attached to plywood sides.
I already owned the tonneau (originally cost about $180), and used some old plywood and bolts I had lying around, for an additional cost of $0
My overall average mileage (on an already heavily modded truck) increased from 26mpg to 28, and test-run highway mileage from 28mpg to 30.
A lower improvement than many of the other designs – no doubt due to not starting at the top of the roofline – but an improvement none the less, and not too far behind most of the other numbers when reporting an actual before and after (as opposed to comparing with the EPA numbers – after all, the expected mileage for my truck is around 15mpg)

There are surely more that I have missed.  Hopefully there will be plenty more to come.
Its always best to buy the smallest vehicle that will fit your daily needs, (and rent a truck if you only need one every now and then).

But for those few people who legitimately do need a big truck, there is no reason to resign yourself to terrible fuel mileage.  If ecomodders can get hybrid like mileage out of ordinary cars, we should be able to get at least ordinary-car-like mileage out of big trucks.
If you’ve been inspired to improve your own truck, post on the forum with your thoughts and questions.  There are a lot of helpful knowledgeable people who will be more than happy to give you any advice you may need to do a similar project of your own.

Update: Oct. 25, 2012 …
For even more examples of aerocaps in the EcoModder forum, see: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/comprehensive-list-aerodynamic-pickup-caps-aeroshells-ecomodder-elsewhere-23775.html

This post was broken up into two parts because it is a bit long.  See last week’s entry for the introduction.

Here are some tips for the BW to ZF swap:

• 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 7^th / 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.

If youâ€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 5^th or 6^thgear, 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.

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, it sold over 5000 units in its first month and was the fastest selling of any car. At the same time, Japanese demand is higher than Toyota can keep up with – they are literally selling faster than they can produce them. The pre-orders for the Aqua have been as much as 10 times higher than Toyota’s projected production. Between the two countries, the 4 “Priuses” (Prii?) – the original, the minivan Prius V, the plug-in, and the new C – combined are the 3rd most popular new car in the world. The “all small cars are deathtraps” myth is slowly dying, perhaps helped in part by the fact that the compact Prius C is one of only 3 cars in 2012 to earn the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s “Top Safety Pick” award. One of just three, out of 337 models in 2012.

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.

The Economy Run, organized by Sports Motor Car Club Montreal, is a road rally where teams compete to achieve the lowest fuel consumption over a predetermined course. 16 cars took the start this year, up from 11 last year and 7 in 2010 when the historic event was revived. The Lanaudière region provides a scenic backdrop with an excellent variety of roads: urban, rural, highway, twisty and hilly, and straight and flat. The 198km loop means that even the most efficient teams consume more than a few litres of fuel, thereby minimizing measurement errors. As in previous years,
sunshine and moderate temperatures made for ideal conditions, especially for those running with the windows closed and the A/C off.

The Economy Run is divided into sections, each of which must be completed within a given time limit. Teams navigate the course by following simple, concise instructions and then check in at a control at the end of each section where their time is verified. A 2% fuel economy penalty is accorded for each whole minute of lateness at a checkpoint. Drivers and co-drivers are challenged to adopt a real-time strategy which maximizes their fuel economy while maintaining sufficient pace to avoid penalties.

This year, half of the field was comprised of Smarts, with half of those running on gasoline and the other half on diesel. The remainder was almost exclusively ’90s-era compacts along with two hybrids: a 2012 Prius-C and a 2000 Honda Insight, however the latter competed with its hybrid features disabled due to a damaged battery pack. Several vehicles applied home-made aerodynamic modifications including a duck nose and a truly spectacular boattail.

The route takes competitors through stop-sign infested Charlemagne and Repentigny before a 15km stretch of divided highway. From there the route quickly leaves the St-Lawrence plain for hilly, twisty sections climbing to a maximum vertical gain of nearly 400m. Maintaining momentum is a challenge, and when it is lost, competitors find themselves having to push their engines hard up hills and out of corners. However, as the route drops back down towards the plains, engine-offcoasts as long as 3km become possible for those with solid nerves. The final quarter of the rally offers plenty of flat, straight stretches perfect for hypermiling, and a chance to improve efficiency before the fill-up.

The drama of the Economy Run is in the fill-up itself. Those with economy computers have an idea of what to expect, but the pump has the final say. Competitors return to the same pump they used to fill up at the start of the rally and then apply the same fill up technique. Fuel quantities are eagerly compared between competitors, but the the final results require calculations taking into account time penalties as well as the net weight and Transport Canada economy rating of each vehicle.

Over a meal filled with plenty of discussion, the following results were calculated. For the first time, a single vehicle topped all three fuel economy metrics: raw economy, timepenalized economy and time-penalized economy per tonne. The 2000 Honda Insight driven by Darin Cosgrove and co-driven by Will Meredith achieved an incredible 3.09L/100km with four minutes of time penalties. Although technically a hybrid, the vehicle’s hybrid features were disabled for the rally, allowing it to compete in the gasoline class. Defending two-time champion Mike Kamm who held the previous record of 3.89L/100km in a 1977 Datsun B210 ceded his title, but nonetheless improved on that result in an unmodified 1997 Geo Metro to finish second in the time-penalized economy category. Moreover, the Metro was the only vehicle to score in the top five across all metrics.

Among the Smarts, the diesel variants clearly outperformed their gas siblings and took three of the top six spots in raw and time-penalized fuel economy. The 2005 Smart ForTwo of Frédéric Bedard and Louise Morel threatened the Insight with an outstanding 3.20L/100km raw economy, but required 14 minutes in time penalties to achieve this result.

The lone hybrid Prius-C finished fifth in raw fuel economy and due to its significant weight, relative to the rest of the field, achieved second place in the time-penalized L/100km/tonne category. While an excellent result, the hybrid nonetheless failed to achieve its rated Transport Canada economy.

The best improvements over Transport Canada estimates came from the older 4+ seater gasoline powered vehicles. The Toyota Levin’s top result can be attributed to event organizer Jeff Dungen’s intimate knowledge of the course. The boattailed 1990 VW Jetta, the oldest and by far most headturning entry, driven by Ken Snowman, finished a close second with a 43% improvement over TC/EPA estimates, despite some navigation errors at the start.

While the Economy Run course is not conducive to maximizing fuel economy scores, it instead provides a solid platform for comparing vehicles, modifications and driving techniques in challenging real-world conditions. Year after year, the possibility to achieve excellent fuel economy on suboptimal roads with tight time constraints has been consistently demonstrated. However, a fuel-efficient vehicle alone far from guarantees success: team strategy, an experienced, confident driver, availability of manual controls to maximize hypermiling techniques and local knowledge all combine to allow truly outstanding results. Next year, teams which balance these qualities are expected to smash the 3L/100km barrier. And we’re still waiting for an EV to complete the course and humble the field.

Final results:

For more information check out the links below:
SMCC Economy Rally
EcoModder SMCC rally forum thread
SMCC rally pictures

Question:
What can you do to absolutely minimize your fuel use?

Answer:
Not drive a car.
(You peaked at the picture header, didn’t you!?)

As much time and effort as we all put into making our cars and trucks more efficient, 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:

and ecomodding will become an even more strange and esoteric hobby than it is today.

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…

EcoModder forum member, Brucepick has been working on an interesting alternator delete for a while now. He wanted to eliminate the load on the alternator, but didn’t like the idea of just replacing the starting battery with a deep cycle lead acid battery. The downside of doing this is that as the battery discharges the voltage sags lower and lower. The lower the voltage is the dimmer your headlights get, your blower motor slows down, etc.Some speculate that the lower voltage might also negatively effect the ignition system and thus lower engine efficiency. While most have found this is a negligible consideration, Brucepick simply didn’t want to deal with it, so he found another way to go about things.

Brucepick decided to add a second battery. This second battery would be a lithium iron phosphate battery (LiFePo4). The LiFePo4 battery has a higher voltage than a normal lead acid battery. With both batteries fresh off a charger the lead acid would be around 12.7V versus the lithium’s 13.2V. This may not seem like much, but when the alternator in a car is hooked up, it keeps the system voltage at 13.5-14.5V. When you go from that down to 12V, that is a ~15% drop in voltage. The lithium battery helps negate that penalty.

Brucepick’s setup is unique in that he starts his car with the lead acid battery, but the rest of his car runs off the lithium battery. He also has a few switches though, so if he has to travel farther than the lithium battery he can simply switch the alternator back on and run off of the lead acid battery like a normal car would. When he can, he plugs in the lithium battery to go back to running without the alternator.

For more information and a full walk through of what Brucepick has done, you can check out his forum thread.

EcoModder forum user CigaR007 has been working on grill blocks for his Toyota Echo for a while now. He started with some simple pipe insulation stuffed between the grill slats as shown above. This version worked well for him and didn’t look bad either as it matched the car’s grill color fairly well. It was also easy to adjust for winter/summer by just pulling some insulation out or adding some insulation back in.

However, he wanted to improve on things. So, his second version was made of coroplast wrapped in some carbon fiber vinyl wrap. This looked better than the last version and seemed to work a bit better at blocking the grill off.

A bit later on, he also did the lower grill block in a similar fashion. This time he used rigid extruded polystyrene foam (the pink/blue foam they use to insulate houses) and again wrapped it in carbon fiber vinyl wrap to make it look nice.

In the mean time he also played around with some ducting behind the grill block to ensure that the air that does go through the grill goes through the radiator instead of going around it. As a side note, the Toyota Prius also does this to improve cooling.

Still not satisfied with what he had, he set upon the next step in improving the grill block. He removed the front pumper cover, lined the grilled area with foil and newspaper, and then poured two part foam into the cavity. It then expanded and formed itself perfectly to the grill opening. With a little sanding, the foam takes its shape.

He also made a foamed grill block for the top as well.

The final step with the foamed grill blocks involved some body work. He filled the air pockets that the foam left with some body filler (bondo), and then put some epoxy resin over it. Then he primed and painted the blocks to the matching colors of his car. As you can see, if you didn’t look closely you wouldn’t even be able to tell that the grill blocks aren’t an OEM part of the vehicle.

For more information on the evolution of CigaR007’s grill blocks, you can check out his forum thread that details out every step of the process.

Originally posted by low & slow on the EcoModder forum.

There has been quite a bit of interest in Alan Smith, an accomplished motorcycle hypermiler and Vetter Challenge competitor, so I drafted some questions for him to answer. Following are the questions and his responses.

Alan, please tell us about yourself, your work history, and your interest in motorcycle hypermiling.

I retired after working 33-years in the electronic industry. I started riding motorcycles right after high school. My interest in what is now called hypermiling started after the first gas crisis in 1973.

Please let us know about your progress in becoming one of the premier motorcycle hypermilers.

I started with a motorcycle that was noted for good fuel economy and just kept going from there.

Why did you select the Ninja 250 for your Vetter Challenge ride?

My fist serious attempt was with a Honda CRF230. It had great potential but being air cooled it would overheat with a streamliner shell. Used Ninja 250s are plentiful, water cooled, and cheap. And they are fun to ride.

What have you done to your Ninja 250 and what are its capabilities?

The engine is still stock but the sprockets have been changed to lower engine RPMs. The aerodynamics made the biggest difference. I donâ€t know its full capabilities yet.

How about future modifications for the Ninja 250?

Currently, I am doing major aerodynamic upgrades for the 2012 summer competition season. An all new tail and nose is being built.

In 2011 you went on a cross country ride of the USA, please give us some highlights of that epic trip.

That trip was 10,200-miles in 6-weeks. The Ninja 250 actually performed very well. My Ninja 250 had no problems cruising above freeway speeds. Crosswinds blew the light weight bike around some.

What kind of fuel economy do you get with your Ninja 250 outside of competitions?

When not in competition I generally get 88-90 MPG and that is not riding the bike gently.

Youâ€ve gotten as high as 116 mpg in 2011, can you go higher?

I would say yes. In last yearâ€s aerodynamic body my arms and legs were out in the wind. The new aerodynamic nose will cure this. Also tweaking the engine might improve the fuel economy.

How did you become friends with Craig Vetter?

Competing against him. With the streamliner competitors we are all friends trying to improve our fuel economy.

What are you proudest of in the arena of motorcycle hypermiling?

Getting accepted by people who ride large motorcycles. Most people think a 250cc motorcycle is only good for running around town. My streamlined Ninja 250 can keep up on the freeways and is a blast to ride on the back roads. The large trunk comes in handy to haul my buddies riding gear.

What advice would you give to motorcyclist wanting to get better fuel economy?

I guess it depends on what level of improvement in fuel economy you want. I have a Suzuki Bandit 1200 that was partially streamlined and I got some good results. I could only go so far with a 1200cc motorcycle. I finally decided to get serious and started looking for a much more fuel efficient motorcycle.

For more info on Alan and Craig’s work you can check out Craig’s website here.

A while back I wrote a blog article on how to winterize your car ecomodder style. Now that its spring again I figured a nice topic would be how to summerize your vehicle for better fuel economy. So, here are some tips that the guys from the forum and I came up with:

Install summer tires (preferably LRR)
Winter tires get very soft in summer heat and wear very quickly. Those mushy tires give poor handling as well as require more energy to push down the road (there of course are exceptions). As things warm up, changing back to summer or all season tires is a good choice. If its time to get new tires for the car you should definitely consider a set of low rolling resisance (LRR) tires. They’ve come along way in recent years and generally don’t cost anymore or perform any worse than a normal tire.

Check tire pressure
For many ecomodders this is a normal task. However, with summer warming things up it is sure to affect tire pressure. You might find that your tire pressure is too high for your liking. Or perhaps you haven’t checked it all winter (like me!) and see that your tires need some additional air.

Install seat covers
A lot of ecomodders love beaded seat covers because they help to keep you cooler and stop you from sweating. This means you can comfortably drive in warmer weather with less cooling needs (be that A/C, fan usage, or windows rolled down). Another alternative is a fan powered seat cover. This will actually blow air over the area where your body touches the seat.

Adjust your grill block
If you live in a cold climate like me you can nearly get away with a full grill block through most of winter. However, that will not work well in summer at all (there are exceptions of course). Take some time to adjust your grill block and open it up a bit so that adequate cooling can be had. An easy way to see if your engine is running too warm is to install an indicator light that shows when your radiator fan is turning on. If it turns on all the time, you should open that grill block a little bit. Conversely, if you never see it turn on, you can feel safe blocking more of the grill off.

Adjust your warm air intake
If you run an agressive warm air intake to help keep engine temperature up you may need to tone it down for summer to keep that coolant fan off as well.

Adjust block heater timer
While a block heater isn’t as useful in summer, it can still help out quite a bit especially if you have a short commute. However, it won’t need to run as long as it does in winter. So, take some time and adjust the amount of time it is on before you leave.

Get out the window sun shade
A sun shade blocks and/or reflects infrared heat away from the car. This is a great way to keep your car cooler while it sits in the sun all day long. Some of our users even make a sun shade for their sunroofs. Hybrids especially benefit from a cooler cabin as the batteries don’t like extreme heat.

Verify optimal air conditioner operation
Try out that A/C before it gets scorching hot out. If anything is in need of repair now is the time before it gets too hot out.

General maintenance
Now that its warmer out its a great time to do a few simple things like topping off fluids, and cleaning out the car. For trucks and other RWD vehicles you can remove any weights you use for winter traction. A couple forum members recommend checking to make sure those salty roads haven’t bound up your brakes. Every spring they jack the car up and just make sure the wheels rotate freely. That would be a great time to check tire wear while you’re at it, and how much pad is left on the brakes.

A few months back, Darin and Ben (EM’s founders) asked me to review the new ScanGauge-E. I gladly accepted and tried it out for a few weeks. You can see the full review here. For the blog we’ll keep it short and to the point.

First up, we’ll look at some of the limitations of the ScanGauge-E. The first thing I noticed was that it only has one cable connector on it. The ScanGauge-II has two, one on the back and one on the front. This isn’t a big deal unless it interferes with how you want to mount the ScanGauge, or on the off chance you want to daisy chain two or more ScanGauge-Es together.

I was able to daisy chain my ScanGauge-II from my car with the ScanGauge-E on the end of the chain though.

Probably the biggest thing most users will note is that the ScanGauge-E only shows two gauges instead of the ScanGauge-II’s four gauge display. While this isn’t quite as nice, Linear Logic has done a few things to negate this limitation.

First off, they have added a bar graph to the left of the display. The graph always tracks MPG over time. However, the scale of the graph, or how it displays information is configurable. By default, the graph’s zero (halfway) shows as your trip average. Therefore you know if you’re doing better or worse than your current average. This is a pretty nice setup.

You can also set the graph’s zero point to a set MPG. They call this “GOAL”, and you can manually set whatever MPG you want as your zero point (0-255). With GOAL you can see if you are hitting the MPG you want or not. You could even set GOAL to the EPA rating of the car to see how well you’re doing compared to it. In addition, you can change the time scale of the graph to show a history of 20 seconds to 16.5 minutes.

Second, they have added gauge sets. You can scroll through the gauge sets with the left buttons. There are three default (not customizable) gauge sets, and two customizable sets. The default gauge sets show instant and trip MPG, the next shows trip CO2 emissions and today’s CO2, and the third shows trip fuel cost and today’s fuel cost. In addition to those three default gauge sets, you can make your own two custom gauge sets like you do with the ScanGauge-II. The buttons on the right cycle through the available gauges just as normal. While using the ScanGauge-E I found these gauge sets to be extremely useful. I really wish the ScanGauge-II had this same feature now.

The last things that the ScanGauge-E doesn’t have is the X-gauges, and performance features. The X-gauges are really nice if you own a hybrid since you can get info on your battery pack and a few other nifty things. I use them all the time with my PHEV Prius. I definitely don’t like to see them go. The performance features you loose out on are 0-60 timing, 1/4 mile timing, and 60-0 timing. But being fuel economy nerds, those are of little use to us anyway!

Let’s move on to what Linear Logic has added to the ScanGauge-E. It does have several features that the ScanGauge-II does not have. I already talked about the MPG graph and the gauge sets. In addition, the ScanGauge-E also calculates CO2 emissions. They have added two new gauges that calculate the CO2 emissions of your vehicle. The first one is “CO2” on the display, it shows how many pounds/kilograms of CO2 your car has put out on the current trip. The next one is “TCO”, and it shows how many pounds/kilograms CO2 your car has put out for the entire day. In the trip meter section you can also see how many pounds/kilograms you’ve put out for the entire tank too.

In conclusion, I don’t think the SGe it is for everyone. But, it’ll be a very good fit for some people, including those looking to save money. You get almost all the features of the ScanGauge-II, but at 2/3rds the price (about $50 savings). That makes the payback much quicker. I think my ScanGauge-II paid for itself quite fast. That makes the ScanGauge-E a no brainer if you’re looking to save money. The other group of people I’d suggest this to would be the more casual ecodrivers out there. Its a nice gauge, gives lots of info and will help increase your mileage. There isn’t too much to look at on the screen; it’s smaller and fits in nooks a bit easier.

All that being said, I wouldn’t recommend the SGe to one specific group of people: the hardcore hypermilers. These folks  love info and will use every bit they can get their hands on to increase their mileage. That means needing the 4 gauges up all the time to optimize driving. I also wouldn’t necessarily recommend the ScanGauge-E to hybrid owners. The loss of the X-gauges is a big price to pay for hybrid owners who can gain a lot of functionality through them.

Of course, EcoModder sells both the ScanGauge-E and the ScanGauge-II. They can both be found in the EcoModder Store.

For the last several months, Ecomodder forum member t vago has been working on a custom aeroshell for his 2000 Dakota Quad Cab pickup truck. While many fuel conscious people will look down on pickup trucks as eminently wasteful, truck owners are a group that has uniquely embraced the spirit of ecomodding. After all, they represent one of the biggest opportunities for improvement in modern motor vehicles.

It’s true: trucks are by in large not built with fuel economy in mind. While this is lamentable, it does give ambitious ecomodders a great place to start. The most glaring deficiency of the pick up truck’s design (from a fuel economy point of view, of course), is the aerodynamics. This is where t vago’s recent efforts come in to play.

If you want the nitty gritty, you can take a look at the original thread, where t vago and others go over their plans in detail. Here we will take a brief look at the origins and progress of the project – a sneak peek into the large amount of time and effort that goes into designing and building an aeroshell from scratch.

In the next two pictures you can see t vago’s humble beginnings:

This original design was built with foam insulation and designed in Microsoft Excel (of all programs) using calculations from this paper.

Unfortunately, this original design was too weak and eventually failed, though not before t vago could quantify a 1 mpg gain.

Here are t vago’s mockups of his first, unsuccessful design, as well as his second design:

First

Second

From there, in true EcoModder fashion, many other users chimed in with design advice as well as some of their own mockups. Here is just one example of the efforts put in on this project by user NeilBlanchard:

Though it took some time to get back on track, t vago was eventually able to produce a mockup of his next aeroshell:

Initial tests with the new aeroshell demonstrated significant gains over his truck’s previous configuration:

Eventually, the cap made it from foam to a more stable, stronger version as we can see here:

The cap is still in progress as just recently t vago has noticed some possible design problems:

A couple of nights ago, I was able to view the wake of my truck with the cap installed, in the rain. I noticed what appeared to be a couple of visible counter-rotating vortices right on either side of the back of the truck. From reading Hucho and looking at the pictures that Piwoslaw has in his album, it would appear the the inward-moving air stream at the sides of my aerocap are interacting with the air stream moving rearward on the sides of the truck. I think this is forming the vortices I’m seeing.

Hopefully we will be able to see a final version of this exciting project soon. In the future we will be talking more about these unique pickup-based modifications here on the EcoModder blog, so look forward to an update on t vago’s project in our next edition!

EcoModding is all about DIY. While it’s nice to see the automakers doing their bit every so often, the things people dream up in the own garages are always infinitely more cool. The Illuminati Motor Works Seven is no different.

Runner up at the Progressive Automotive X-Prize, the Seven has recently posted impressive numbers at Chrysler’s proving grounds in Michigan. To be exact, they managed a cool 207.5 MPGe over the same course where the obviously impressive Nissan Leaf only managed to 99 MPGe.

This is an impressive feat considering that this number was posted using the official EPA test cycle for electric vehicles. Many people could squeak out that kind of number scooting around in a circle at 10 mph, but that’s not the case here.

Here are the final stats from the team’s run through the EPA test cycle:

207.5 MPGe

160.42 Wh/mile

Vehicle Weight = 2900 lbs.

Here’s some other stats for you to feast your eyes on:

Top Speed: 130 mph

0-60 Time: 8 secs

Range: 200 miles

Source: Illuminati Motor Works