Increasing Fuel Efficiency
What is Fuel Efficiency?
In today's world, whether we are driving professionally or solely for personal use, it is good to understand not only what fuel efficiency is, but how we can improve the fuel efficiency of the vehicles we are driving. Fuel Efficiency is defined as a vehicles ability to derive energy from its fuel. The more energy the vehicle is able to get, the higher fuel efficiency you will see. This, in turn, will not only help you by cutting fuel costs, but it can also help with the wear and tear on your vehicle. So yes, everyone should pay attention to fuel efficiency.
What factors contribute to fuel efficiency?
Every vehicle on the road today has different capabilities when it comes to fuel efficiency. Everything from engine tuning, brake drag, air filters and even weather can affect the fuel efficiency of the vehicle you are driving. By staying up to date with routine maintenance checks can ensure that your vehicle is running properly. In essence helping you achieve higher miles per gallon, directly affecting your efficiency. Currently when it comes to the National average semi-trucks range from 5-8 MPG and personal passenger vehicles range from 15-25 MPG depending on size. Where do you fall in this range, what other factors come into play and what else can we do to improve this?
Ways to increase your efficiency:
One of the easiest ways to achieve an increase this is to watch your right foot. Whether that means just keeping your speed down in general or watching your acceleration. Rapid acceleration can lead to increased fuel consumption. The faster you accelerate; the more fuel is being burned. By maintaining a steady speed increase, you can decrease the rate in which fuel is consumed. However, it's not just acceleration speed. When it comes to operating speeds, the faster you go, the more fuel you use. For example, driving at speeds above 75mph actually increases fuel consumption. In fact, driving at 75 mph uses 27% more fuel then if you were traveling at 65mph.
One for the largest factors in fuel economy & efficiency is idle time. We may not think that sitting in a school pick up line with your vehicle running, using your remote start multiple times to warm up or cool down your vehicle or even keeping your truck running while you run into a building for paperwork or grabbing a snack at a gas station would make that big of a difference, but it actually can. Idling your car for 15 minutes can waste 1/8 to 1/4 of a gallon of fuel. Larger vehicles such as heavy-duty trucks and semis can be closer to a full gallon, possibly more.
Why does this all matter?
Not only can fuel efficiency impact your wallet while fueling, but statistics shown on the internet also state that for every gallon of fuel burned while idling, we can emit 20 pounds of carbon dioxide. By transforming our thinking and implementing even the slightest changes to our daily routine, not only can we save money, but we can reduce our carbon footprint.
Interested in hearing what one of our professional drivers have to say about fuel efficiencies and how it affects us here at Simon's Trucking? Check out this month's episode of Big Motors Radio below.