July 2, 2009 • 22 mins
The EPA tests vehicles for maximum fuel efficiency, but those impressive estimates don't always pan out in real life. Hypermiling is one sure-fire way to improve your fuel efficiency. Find out how it works in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Chuck Bryant.
We are podcasting right in the midst of death season. Chuck. Wow, Yeah,
(00:26):
what I don't I don't know big Man, Fara Fawcett,
Michael Jackson, Billy Mays, some impressionist. I don't know that
comedian guy. Yeah, people dropping like flies. Wow. Yeah, I
feel lucky to be here. I do too. Actually, Chuck,
I'm on vacation. I know you are. Chuck Bryant is
such a world class employee that he actually came in
(00:48):
while on vacation too. Podcasts. This is I'm Freshen from
the airport yep. From wedding in Columbus, Ohio. How was
it my first Catholic wedding? Dude? Those things are awesome?
My first one elnty of wine? Uh yeah, the reception, sure,
but no wine at the at the mass or you
were looking around there there were flasks of wine and
(01:08):
the fews. You believe me. It was long pretty cool though,
I've never experienced that. When everyone started, uh reciting the
things chanting is it called chanting that? I call it chanting?
It freaked me out at first, Yeah, quite honestly because
I grew up Baptist and there's people don't say anything
out loud in Baptist churches. But it was interesting, definitely
(01:29):
a cool experience to go through. That's you only really
need to do it once. I would agree, you know,
and I doubt if I'll go to a lot more weddings.
So dude, when I was living in Toledo, I probably
spent fifty to seventy hours a week in a Catholic wedding,
series of Catholic weddings. Yeah, columb is pretty cool though.
It's Yeah, Ohio state not bad, Bill Buckeyes. Alright, are
we done? Yes? Okay, what are we talking about today?
(01:52):
We are talking about gas mileage? Oh yes, and how
it's calculated, right yep, kick us off, chuck. Well, Uh,
something you folks might notice when you go to buy
a car these days, Um, they'll advertise certain gas mileage
and you may not get the gas mileage when you're
driving the car that was on the sticker on the
(02:12):
side of the car. Or on the TV commercial that
was kicking us off. That's a very common thing to
not get the gas mileage that's stated. Well why well,
because well let's let's get into this, all right, let's
do it, Chucks. So basically, as you stated, pretty much,
God and everybody knows that whatever that says on the
the sticker on the car for the whatever it's miles
(02:35):
per gallon has been calculated at is vastly more than
what you're actually going to get. And um, it's not
because the e p A isn't putting cars that it
tests through rigorous experiences, right, it's not because they don't care. No,
as a matter of fact, they don't test almost any
(02:56):
of the cars that come out. That's actually left to
the auto manufacturers. That was kind of but there. They
submit their findings to the e p A for review,
and then the e p A, I guess, randomly tests
about ten to fift of the new models that are released. Yeah,
a little disappointed. I would have thought the would be
a little more involved than that. You would think so,
but no, not really. They're busy though, busy running around
(03:17):
trying to figure out how to bring super fun sites
back exactly Brown fields um, so chuck. The other I
guess big weirdness that has to do with e p
a UM fuel efficiency calculations is that cars actually don't
ever see the road. True, They're put on what are
(03:38):
they called. It's called a It sounds kind of fantastic.
It's called dynamometer. Nice dynamometer. Dynamometer, dynamo, Yeah, something like
along those lines. Let's call it a fun machine. Actually,
it's like it's like a treadmill for a car, is
what it is. Right, So the car is actually in
a lab being tested. Uh, and it's kind of like
(04:00):
Ferris Bueller's Day Off exactly, not in reverse, right. Um,
And I guess they have the city They have a
city test, which is what Well, both tests involved a
professional driver, so this Yeah, I wonder if they get paid. Yeah,
that's a good question. Go into the e p A
test drive a car for a few minutes. I wonder
what everybody gets paid, do you? Oh? Yeah, I'm one
(04:22):
of those guys. So yeah, professional driver gets in, uh
to simulate depending on which which tests city or or highway,
which driving conditions. So the city program, what they do is, uh,
they get in, start the engine cold, and then they
simulate stop and go traffic idling, that kind of thing.
(04:43):
I think. They say eleven miles is how how far
they drive, and they make twenty three stops over the
course of thirty one minutes. Right, drive an average speed
of twenty miles an hour and the top speed of
fifty six miles an hour, which is yeah, it seems smart. Yeah, okay,
all right, and then the highway test, Uh, you start
out with a warm engine, and they drive ten miles
(05:06):
with an average speed of forty eight miles per hour
and a top speed of sixty miles for about twelve
and a half minutes. So let me go ahead and
say sixty top speed of the same for me, pal
bat out of hell. Uh, And I just drive as
fast as I can. And if you are in front
of me in the fast lane and you're not driving
(05:27):
faster than me, I'm all upon you. You're like the
German's pretty much or Winston Wolf. Yeah yeah, not quite
as fast as that. But well that's because you don't
have a both up that high. No. No, but um okay,
So these two tests, this seem logical enough. Here's where
things become really illogical and where the discrepancies come from right.
(05:47):
The whole time the e p A is conducting these tests,
or the auto manufacturers conducting the test. Uh, there is
a little sensor jammed in the tail pipe, stuck in there, right,
like when you go to do the emissions testing. Sure,
and this thing is measuring how much carbon is present
in the exhaust. Right. So instead of looking at the
(06:09):
tank meter or whatever, the tank meter, what country am
I from the gas gage? Yeah, that would be the
easy way to do it and just divide. But yeah,
they say it is actually more accurate. It is more accurate.
The thing is is, I mean, do you drive around
with the sensor jamed in your tailpipe? I do not, sir, No,
nor do I very clean person, um, and neither do
(06:30):
most people, right, correct? Um? So this is why when
you go buy a car the miles per gallont calculated
are vastly different. That's not the only problem, right, because
it's in a lab that automatically changes everything everything. Not
only do we not drive around the sensors jammed up
our tailpipes, we also don't drive in laboratories on dynamometers.
(06:55):
And there are many, many differences between a dynamometer and
a lab on the road. We're gonna lick that word
before this podcast over uh weather. That's that's a big one.
Wind resistance. Most laboratories are indoors, right, different having passengers
in your car, having a roof rack with your stupid
bike on the back. Weight aerodynamics and that that's that's
(07:17):
really probably the biggest one as far as I'm concerned.
I mean, think about it. The car is not moving,
it's just the wheels, right, just the wheels, so there's
no drag whatsoever. Like when I'm flying down seventy doing
ninety miles per hour and it's hot out, Um, I've
got all four of my windows rolled down, and that
just devastates fuel efficiency. Yeah, it completely changes the aerodynamic
(07:42):
characteristics of the car, which revolvers are kind of boxy
to begin with. Um, but yeah, I've noticed my my
gas case just go over like twenty miles. I used
to I used to drive a Plymouth Valiant. Ever tell
you about t my cart? Isn't that the one you
drove back from l A. Well, I towed it to
l A. It would have you bought it in l A. No,
(08:05):
I bought it here and towed it out there. I've
never heard of this car. Then, well, it's a great car,
but it was one of those old gas guzzlers and
this thing, literally, dude, if I was accelerating on the highway,
if you looked hard enough, you could see the needle move. Yeah.
It was bad. It was real bad. The other things
they don't account for, Josh, since we're talking about this
is uh what they call jack rabbit starts or lead
(08:25):
foot acceleration because that that will burn up your gas quicker.
And that's realistic city driving, you know, Oh, definitely. Most
people don't just go they go right, you know, he does,
He does do that. Chris Cox, our coworker, I see
a slow patient driver. Yeah, and I hope you listen
to this. You try, Chris, stay out of the fast Laton.
(08:50):
Another problem with this test, and and I know it
seems like we're saying that there's nothing but problems with
this test, but that's because there isn't. Um is that
it tends to favor or dramatically favor hybrids, right, because
the belief city driving is where the hybrid really gets
the most, almost all electric which is produced zero emission.
And they this they I guess they haven't adjusted the
(09:13):
formula to account for that. So you know, all of
a sudden the um, you know, some hybrid cars just
getting these incredible miles per gallon ratings when they don't really, Um,
there are some some ways around this. Well, before we
get to that kind of mention, one more thing. These
are brands spanking new cars that they're driving. Oh yes,
(09:35):
and not only that they've been broken in properly. There's
actually a way, um, that you're supposed to break in
a car when you first buy one. UM. And I
think it does take place over the course of a
couple of thousand miles. But you you want to drive
I think no more than sixty and then stop it
and it's staggered. There's this whole process to it. It
(09:56):
could actually probably take up part of a podcast itself.
And I don't know enough about it to go into
it because I've never had a new car. No one
does that, but that's the way you're supposed to do it.
So apparently the e p A does it. So these
are brand new cars that have been properly broken in,
and so they get maximum fuel efficiency right, And I
think the point, I guess my original point was if
you I don't remember, you don't maintain your car, and
(10:19):
a lot of people don't maintain their car like you
probably should. You're gonna get worse gas mileage, right, Plus
they don't have any of the electrical system running. No
A C. Yeah, well, the tires are perfectly inflated. Basically,
this is like what the e p A thinks everybody
should be driving, and absolutely no one does. Well, they
said they were gonna and we should follow up on this.
They said they were gonna start doing more realistic tests
(10:44):
in the future. And they said that the future. Yeah,
I'm not sure if if that's an effect yet, but
they did say they were going to try and start
taking some of these more things into account. It's about time,
it is, you know. And just look at the gas
gates like everybody else, no one cares how much carbon
is present in the exhalt save that for the emissions inspection. So, Chuck,
(11:04):
as I was saying, yes, cheating the e p A. Yeah,
there's some ways to to beat the e PA at
their own game, right, well, beat your beat your car
its own game or the oil companies. Are you talking
about hyper miling? I am Chuck. You know what that is?
Hyper miling? Yeah, yeah, sure, Okay, well do you know
who coined it? Uh, some dude in Chicago. What's his name?
(11:24):
Wayne Gerdis, the King of hyper miling. Yeah, I think.
I'm not sure if he won the title or not,
but I think he's the world's most fuel efficient driver.
I think so too. Yeah, and he is dedicated to it,
like I will never hyper mile ever, it just takes
too much patience and you're slow. You're the slowest driver
on the road and you're hyper mileing, right, you hyper drive? Thanks,
(11:47):
that's different, but um it, it definitely improves your your
fuel efficiency for sure. Yeah. Let's hear um Edmonds, the
car magazine Edmonds. They didn't experiment, and they found at
hyper miling you can get an extra thirty more per
gallon and that was in a land Rover. Yeah, which
guzz And apparently if you hyper mile and like a
(12:09):
Toyota Prius, you can bump it up to like a gallon.
They say, Yeah, I saw a picture. There was a
Mother Jones article on Wayne Gurtis, and they had two
shots of these two different dashboards went from a Prius
and I think went from an inside or something like that,
and these things were clocking like a hundred and fifty
miles per gallon. Man, that's nuts. Yeah, it is nuts.
(12:31):
And I don't drive I probably, I don't even know.
If I put fifty miles a week on my car,
maybe seventy five miles a week, you could make a
tank of gas last like a year. Like that, I
could if I had a Prius, I should do that. Yeah,
but I have my old Civic and gets decent gas mileage.
But I don't drive enough to invest in a new
car at this point. Well, the cool thing about um
about hyper milings You don't need a new car. You
(12:52):
can do it with any car. It's merely a series
of techniques. You don't have to go buy anything. You
don't have to do anything except dry. I've pretty conscientiously
and be aware of what you're doing, like um, accelerating
and breaking too quickly. You were saying, uh that that
was the Edmonds test that was based on taking off
at a red light or just driving up to your
(13:14):
red light and slamming on your brakes. They're both waste
of gas. Um, so too is driving on the highway
without cruise control. Yeah, I didn't realize that they actually
that same test by Edmonds actually vastly improved the fuel
efficiency of the land Rover. And I think they tested
a Mustang too, But they got the biggest bank for
their buck um using cruise control at seventy on the
(13:37):
land Rover, Because if you think about it, I mean,
even if you're really paying attention to staying at seventy
miles an hour, it's still based on your foot and
your foot is flawed. It's kind of heavy, clumsy thing.
I know you do. I wasn't gonna bring it up. Um, So, yeah,
you want to rely on cruise control. Those two things
(13:58):
alone will will really increase your fuel efficiency. Driving at
lower speeds is a really important thing too. Yeah. Did
it didn't say anywhere with what the ideal speed was. No,
but I've always heard sixty. Really, I've always heard like
thirty five to forty for like the ultimate gas mileage.
I'm talking highway, Okay, sure, yeah, you'll get in trouble
(14:18):
if you drive thirty. Now that makes sense then yeah,
I think in the city though, it's thirty, is it? Yeah? Well,
I know that they used to have much Well, I
guess today's UM posted speed limits back in the early
seventies or late sixties and then because of the oil embargo,
that's when they were dropped down to fifty five, was
to increase fuel efficiency in cars. And then they've kicked
(14:40):
it back up because everybody's like, we want to drive
fast again. We don't care about it. We're we're on
the highway to hell anyway. Just let us drive as
fast as we want. That can't drive fifty five crowd
and uh A C apparently is kind of a big one,
using it at max power, which is decisive, uncompromising and rude. Yeah,
I I don't. My A C doesn't work. As I said,
(15:02):
I drive down the highway with the windows open, and
that apparently is way worse than driving with your A
C on because of the drag. And this guy he
also doesn't he coast and cut his engine early if
he's approaching a parking space, so he'll he'll coast the
last whatever, however far he can to to park his car.
And gurtis actually on his site. I think it's clean
(15:25):
MPG dot com. If that's not his site, he writes
heavily for it. Um he answered an age old question
for me. If you are going to be idling for
longer than seven seconds, turn your car off because it
takes about seven seconds worth of gas to turn a
fuel injected car over. He always wondered, Yeah, I've never
(15:47):
heard like an whoever told me? I didn't believe. I
believe this guy. So if you're sitting like at a
at a drive through or something, turn the car off. Yeah,
you know that's a great idea. Yeah. And then there's
some slightly more advanced techniques for people who are really
into this patient people like what like ridge riding. I
don't know that that was actually another term coined by
(16:10):
Gurtis that. Um, I hope i'm saying his last name, right,
I've never met the guy, so okay, um it's where
you hug the far right line solid line of the
far right lane on the highway. Uh. And one of
the there's You do this for two reasons. One is
to make yourself really obvious and noticeable the other drivers
so they have an opportunity to pass you early because
(16:32):
you're going Yeah, because I think he drives like fifty
or um So then I was probably wrong about sixty
because this guy is probably gonna drive at the optimal
speed on the highway. Um. So number one, it makes
you obvious because you're not positioned like everybody else. But secondly,
in bad weather, especially rain, you're actually taking yourself out
(16:56):
of those depressions that have worn into the asphalt with
huddles are forming sure running through through water. Yeah I
didn't realize that. Yeah, definitely, because your your wheels are moving,
but you're not getting anywhere. Yeah, that makes sense. So
you you've lost traction. You're a hyper miler, Josh, in
a way, I just know a lot about it. Again,
I'll never do it right. Uh. And then probably my
(17:18):
favorite is distant anticipatory focus d a F. Yes. So
Gerti's basically tries to drive like he doesn't have brakes.
Oh yeah, okay, he maintains a very slow, steady pace.
So he's looking several lights ahead right to uh to
time his driving to that light. He's trying to accelerate
(17:38):
slowly to to keep in time with these these lights
because he wants nothing but green lights. That makes sense.
He never has to use his brakes. That saves quite
a bit too. Of course, this is the same guy
who also turns off his ignition and coats into parking spaces.
So yeah, but that's pretty much hyper miling. I mean
there's actually a lot more to it, taking advantage of
other cars, like using eighteen wheelers to draft off of Yeah,
(18:01):
well that's a lot of the NASCAR guys hyper mile.
They don't call it that. I don't know what they
call it. Someone probably has that answer, but they Yeah,
during um, the caution when they have like debris on
the track and the pace cars there, Yeah, the little guy,
I'll throw out the caution flag and that means everyone's
got to slow down until they clean all the crowd
off the track, and um, the A lot of the
(18:23):
drivers will cut their engines and coast for a while
and then cut them back on and then cut them again,
and then while they're racing, they will draft. That's a
very popular technique to save fuel because in NASCAR, if
you the fewer stops the better. Sure, obviously, yeah you
Nascar guy, No me neither. I watched it for a while. Remember,
(18:43):
I really love the origin of NASCAR bootlegging. Other than that,
I'm not really in the NASCAR. My sister in law, Sarah,
who I was just with in Ohio, is big in
the NASCAR, and we always give her hard time. Yeah,
we call her a bead neck and stuff. Yeah, it's good. Well, um,
anything about it? No, I mean really until until we
(19:04):
come up with an alternative fuel source or you know
standard hundred mile an hour or hundred miles per gallon
uh cars. It's a good idea hyper mile yeah we
should say, though, I think exercise some caution if you
want to try this stuff out, because you know some cars,
if you turn the key off, don't turn all the
way off because you're steering. Roo whe will walk up.
It's a good point. And I think sometimes the air
(19:25):
brakes are activated when you start the car, right yeah,
so I think you want to keep keep it set
to ignition or start keep it set to the on
position so you can still run your radio. No, so
you still see lights on the dashboard, right yeah, So
just just be careful if you want to try some
experimentation here. You were really good at c O A buddy. Well,
I could see somebody have any idea how many times
(19:47):
we would have been suedere not for you? And just
my mind's eye had just pictured someone saying Josh and
Chuck said to cut my engine, and all of a sudden,
like who is this Josh and Chuck, they go to
pull into the car to the parking space and they're
steering wheel lock sup and have a record six miles
an hour. Well good, all right, that's hyper miling. And
e p A. Well, we'll keep an eye out to
(20:07):
see if the e p A actually does do any
real world testing. Good idea. Let's se listener mail, I
think so okay, nowhere to go, but up right, Josh,
we are going to call this what was in my
inbox before I came in listener mail. Awesome, that's a secret. Actually,
(20:28):
I shouldn't ever revealed that the good way to get
a listener mails to email me the day we record.
It's not a secret anymore. This is about the Peter principal.
Remember we did a podcast about the fact that many
companies will not demote somebody, that will just fire somebody
if they're incompetent. And this is from Jennifer and she
says that she worked for the same company, has still
(20:52):
working there for five or six years, and last November
she was worked her way up to the top of
sales support and she was kicked down to reception instead
of fired. And she was told about her new job
and said that she was getting the demotion because she
was the weakest person on the team and a little harsh,
I thought so. And she asked him during the meeting
(21:13):
why didn't they just fire her? And they said because
she was still a very important part of the teams.
It's the worst part of the team. Exactly, very important
part of our team, but the worst part. Don't forget that, uh.
And she said that um, her pay didn't change, so
she's actually a very high paid receptionist and um actually
(21:34):
makes more than a lot of people on the sales
team now at the reception desk, which I'll bet the
sales team just loves. And we actually did have someone
else emailed another company that said that they practiced this
as well. Well, that's fantastic. Two out of several hundred thousand, Yeah,
not too bad. And she also adds here at the
end that we sometimes give shout outs to our men
and women overseas for fighting and Iraq and Afghanistan and
(21:57):
to support them. And she says that she's an Air
Force wife and that we should mention families occasionally they're
left behind because it's very hard on them, do it, Chuck.
And my brother in law is in the Marine Corps
and he has been deployed many times. My sister Michelle
and her kids shall be in Reagan or often left
at home for months at a time, and it is
hard on the family. So when we say support the troops,
(22:19):
we mean the whole family, the whole kid and can
do it nicely, don't chuck, Thank you nicely. Good. That's it. Well,
if you want to Mia Colpa out of chuck, you
can email us at stuff podcast at how stuff works
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how
(22:42):
stuff works, check out our blogs on the house. Stuff
works dot com home page. Brought to you by the
reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Chuck Bryant.
We are podcasting right in the midst of death season. Chuck. Wow, Yeah,
(00:26):
what I don't I don't know big Man, Fara Fawcett,
Michael Jackson, Billy Mays, some impressionist. I don't know that
comedian guy. Yeah, people dropping like flies. Wow. Yeah, I
feel lucky to be here. I do too. Actually, Chuck,
I'm on vacation. I know you are. Chuck Bryant is
such a world class employee that he actually came in
(00:48):
while on vacation too. Podcasts. This is I'm Freshen from
the airport yep. From wedding in Columbus, Ohio. How was
it my first Catholic wedding? Dude? Those things are awesome?
My first one elnty of wine? Uh yeah, the reception, sure,
but no wine at the at the mass or you
were looking around there there were flasks of wine and
(01:08):
the fews. You believe me. It was long pretty cool though,
I've never experienced that. When everyone started, uh reciting the
things chanting is it called chanting that? I call it chanting?
It freaked me out at first, Yeah, quite honestly because
I grew up Baptist and there's people don't say anything
out loud in Baptist churches. But it was interesting, definitely
(01:29):
a cool experience to go through. That's you only really
need to do it once. I would agree, you know,
and I doubt if I'll go to a lot more weddings.
So dude, when I was living in Toledo, I probably
spent fifty to seventy hours a week in a Catholic wedding,
series of Catholic weddings. Yeah, columb is pretty cool though.
It's Yeah, Ohio state not bad, Bill Buckeyes. Alright, are
we done? Yes? Okay, what are we talking about today?
(01:52):
We are talking about gas mileage? Oh yes, and how
it's calculated, right yep, kick us off, chuck. Well, Uh,
something you folks might notice when you go to buy
a car these days, Um, they'll advertise certain gas mileage
and you may not get the gas mileage when you're
driving the car that was on the sticker on the
(02:12):
side of the car. Or on the TV commercial that
was kicking us off. That's a very common thing to
not get the gas mileage that's stated. Well why well,
because well let's let's get into this, all right, let's
do it, Chucks. So basically, as you stated, pretty much,
God and everybody knows that whatever that says on the
the sticker on the car for the whatever it's miles
(02:35):
per gallon has been calculated at is vastly more than
what you're actually going to get. And um, it's not
because the e p A isn't putting cars that it
tests through rigorous experiences, right, it's not because they don't care. No,
as a matter of fact, they don't test almost any
(02:56):
of the cars that come out. That's actually left to
the auto manufacturers. That was kind of but there. They
submit their findings to the e p A for review,
and then the e p A, I guess, randomly tests
about ten to fift of the new models that are released. Yeah,
a little disappointed. I would have thought the would be
a little more involved than that. You would think so,
but no, not really. They're busy though, busy running around
(03:17):
trying to figure out how to bring super fun sites
back exactly Brown fields um, so chuck. The other I
guess big weirdness that has to do with e p
a UM fuel efficiency calculations is that cars actually don't
ever see the road. True, They're put on what are
(03:38):
they called. It's called a It sounds kind of fantastic.
It's called dynamometer. Nice dynamometer. Dynamometer, dynamo, Yeah, something like
along those lines. Let's call it a fun machine. Actually,
it's like it's like a treadmill for a car, is
what it is. Right, So the car is actually in
a lab being tested. Uh, and it's kind of like
(04:00):
Ferris Bueller's Day Off exactly, not in reverse, right. Um,
And I guess they have the city They have a
city test, which is what Well, both tests involved a
professional driver, so this Yeah, I wonder if they get paid. Yeah,
that's a good question. Go into the e p A
test drive a car for a few minutes. I wonder
what everybody gets paid, do you? Oh? Yeah, I'm one
(04:22):
of those guys. So yeah, professional driver gets in, uh
to simulate depending on which which tests city or or highway,
which driving conditions. So the city program, what they do is, uh,
they get in, start the engine cold, and then they
simulate stop and go traffic idling, that kind of thing.
(04:43):
I think. They say eleven miles is how how far
they drive, and they make twenty three stops over the
course of thirty one minutes. Right, drive an average speed
of twenty miles an hour and the top speed of
fifty six miles an hour, which is yeah, it seems smart. Yeah, okay,
all right, and then the highway test, Uh, you start
out with a warm engine, and they drive ten miles
(05:06):
with an average speed of forty eight miles per hour
and a top speed of sixty miles for about twelve
and a half minutes. So let me go ahead and
say sixty top speed of the same for me, pal
bat out of hell. Uh, And I just drive as
fast as I can. And if you are in front
of me in the fast lane and you're not driving
(05:27):
faster than me, I'm all upon you. You're like the
German's pretty much or Winston Wolf. Yeah yeah, not quite
as fast as that. But well that's because you don't
have a both up that high. No. No, but um okay,
So these two tests, this seem logical enough. Here's where
things become really illogical and where the discrepancies come from right.
(05:47):
The whole time the e p A is conducting these tests,
or the auto manufacturers conducting the test. Uh, there is
a little sensor jammed in the tail pipe, stuck in there, right,
like when you go to do the emissions testing. Sure,
and this thing is measuring how much carbon is present
in the exhaust. Right. So instead of looking at the
(06:09):
tank meter or whatever, the tank meter, what country am
I from the gas gage? Yeah, that would be the
easy way to do it and just divide. But yeah,
they say it is actually more accurate. It is more accurate.
The thing is is, I mean, do you drive around
with the sensor jamed in your tailpipe? I do not, sir, No,
nor do I very clean person, um, and neither do
(06:30):
most people, right, correct? Um? So this is why when
you go buy a car the miles per gallont calculated
are vastly different. That's not the only problem, right, because
it's in a lab that automatically changes everything everything. Not
only do we not drive around the sensors jammed up
our tailpipes, we also don't drive in laboratories on dynamometers.
(06:55):
And there are many, many differences between a dynamometer and
a lab on the road. We're gonna lick that word
before this podcast over uh weather. That's that's a big one.
Wind resistance. Most laboratories are indoors, right, different having passengers
in your car, having a roof rack with your stupid
bike on the back. Weight aerodynamics and that that's that's
(07:17):
really probably the biggest one as far as I'm concerned.
I mean, think about it. The car is not moving,
it's just the wheels, right, just the wheels, so there's
no drag whatsoever. Like when I'm flying down seventy doing
ninety miles per hour and it's hot out, Um, I've
got all four of my windows rolled down, and that
just devastates fuel efficiency. Yeah, it completely changes the aerodynamic
(07:42):
characteristics of the car, which revolvers are kind of boxy
to begin with. Um, but yeah, I've noticed my my
gas case just go over like twenty miles. I used
to I used to drive a Plymouth Valiant. Ever tell
you about t my cart? Isn't that the one you
drove back from l A. Well, I towed it to
l A. It would have you bought it in l A. No,
(08:05):
I bought it here and towed it out there. I've
never heard of this car. Then, well, it's a great car,
but it was one of those old gas guzzlers and
this thing, literally, dude, if I was accelerating on the highway,
if you looked hard enough, you could see the needle move. Yeah.
It was bad. It was real bad. The other things
they don't account for, Josh, since we're talking about this
is uh what they call jack rabbit starts or lead
(08:25):
foot acceleration because that that will burn up your gas quicker.
And that's realistic city driving, you know, Oh, definitely. Most
people don't just go they go right, you know, he does,
He does do that. Chris Cox, our coworker, I see
a slow patient driver. Yeah, and I hope you listen
to this. You try, Chris, stay out of the fast Laton.
(08:50):
Another problem with this test, and and I know it
seems like we're saying that there's nothing but problems with
this test, but that's because there isn't. Um is that
it tends to favor or dramatically favor hybrids, right, because
the belief city driving is where the hybrid really gets
the most, almost all electric which is produced zero emission.
And they this they I guess they haven't adjusted the
(09:13):
formula to account for that. So you know, all of
a sudden the um, you know, some hybrid cars just
getting these incredible miles per gallon ratings when they don't really, Um,
there are some some ways around this. Well, before we
get to that kind of mention, one more thing. These
are brands spanking new cars that they're driving. Oh yes,
(09:35):
and not only that they've been broken in properly. There's
actually a way, um, that you're supposed to break in
a car when you first buy one. UM. And I
think it does take place over the course of a
couple of thousand miles. But you you want to drive
I think no more than sixty and then stop it
and it's staggered. There's this whole process to it. It
(09:56):
could actually probably take up part of a podcast itself.
And I don't know enough about it to go into
it because I've never had a new car. No one
does that, but that's the way you're supposed to do it.
So apparently the e p A does it. So these
are brand new cars that have been properly broken in,
and so they get maximum fuel efficiency right, And I
think the point, I guess my original point was if
you I don't remember, you don't maintain your car, and
(10:19):
a lot of people don't maintain their car like you
probably should. You're gonna get worse gas mileage, right, Plus
they don't have any of the electrical system running. No
A C. Yeah, well, the tires are perfectly inflated. Basically,
this is like what the e p A thinks everybody
should be driving, and absolutely no one does. Well, they
said they were gonna and we should follow up on this.
They said they were gonna start doing more realistic tests
(10:44):
in the future. And they said that the future. Yeah,
I'm not sure if if that's an effect yet, but
they did say they were going to try and start
taking some of these more things into account. It's about time,
it is, you know. And just look at the gas
gates like everybody else, no one cares how much carbon
is present in the exhalt save that for the emissions inspection. So, Chuck,
(11:04):
as I was saying, yes, cheating the e p A. Yeah,
there's some ways to to beat the e PA at
their own game, right, well, beat your beat your car
its own game or the oil companies. Are you talking
about hyper miling? I am Chuck. You know what that is?
Hyper miling? Yeah, yeah, sure, Okay, well do you know
who coined it? Uh, some dude in Chicago. What's his name?
(11:24):
Wayne Gerdis, the King of hyper miling. Yeah, I think.
I'm not sure if he won the title or not,
but I think he's the world's most fuel efficient driver.
I think so too. Yeah, and he is dedicated to it,
like I will never hyper mile ever, it just takes
too much patience and you're slow. You're the slowest driver
on the road and you're hyper mileing, right, you hyper drive? Thanks,
(11:47):
that's different, but um it, it definitely improves your your
fuel efficiency for sure. Yeah. Let's hear um Edmonds, the
car magazine Edmonds. They didn't experiment, and they found at
hyper miling you can get an extra thirty more per
gallon and that was in a land Rover. Yeah, which
guzz And apparently if you hyper mile and like a
(12:09):
Toyota Prius, you can bump it up to like a gallon.
They say, Yeah, I saw a picture. There was a
Mother Jones article on Wayne Gurtis, and they had two
shots of these two different dashboards went from a Prius
and I think went from an inside or something like that,
and these things were clocking like a hundred and fifty
miles per gallon. Man, that's nuts. Yeah, it is nuts.
(12:31):
And I don't drive I probably, I don't even know.
If I put fifty miles a week on my car,
maybe seventy five miles a week, you could make a
tank of gas last like a year. Like that, I
could if I had a Prius, I should do that. Yeah,
but I have my old Civic and gets decent gas mileage.
But I don't drive enough to invest in a new
car at this point. Well, the cool thing about um
about hyper milings You don't need a new car. You
(12:52):
can do it with any car. It's merely a series
of techniques. You don't have to go buy anything. You
don't have to do anything except dry. I've pretty conscientiously
and be aware of what you're doing, like um, accelerating
and breaking too quickly. You were saying, uh that that
was the Edmonds test that was based on taking off
at a red light or just driving up to your
(13:14):
red light and slamming on your brakes. They're both waste
of gas. Um, so too is driving on the highway
without cruise control. Yeah, I didn't realize that they actually
that same test by Edmonds actually vastly improved the fuel
efficiency of the land Rover. And I think they tested
a Mustang too, But they got the biggest bank for
their buck um using cruise control at seventy on the
(13:37):
land Rover, Because if you think about it, I mean,
even if you're really paying attention to staying at seventy
miles an hour, it's still based on your foot and
your foot is flawed. It's kind of heavy, clumsy thing.
I know you do. I wasn't gonna bring it up. Um, So, yeah,
you want to rely on cruise control. Those two things
(13:58):
alone will will really increase your fuel efficiency. Driving at
lower speeds is a really important thing too. Yeah. Did
it didn't say anywhere with what the ideal speed was. No,
but I've always heard sixty. Really, I've always heard like
thirty five to forty for like the ultimate gas mileage.
I'm talking highway, Okay, sure, yeah, you'll get in trouble
(14:18):
if you drive thirty. Now that makes sense then yeah,
I think in the city though, it's thirty, is it? Yeah? Well,
I know that they used to have much Well, I
guess today's UM posted speed limits back in the early
seventies or late sixties and then because of the oil embargo,
that's when they were dropped down to fifty five, was
to increase fuel efficiency in cars. And then they've kicked
(14:40):
it back up because everybody's like, we want to drive
fast again. We don't care about it. We're we're on
the highway to hell anyway. Just let us drive as
fast as we want. That can't drive fifty five crowd
and uh A C apparently is kind of a big one,
using it at max power, which is decisive, uncompromising and rude. Yeah,
I I don't. My A C doesn't work. As I said,
(15:02):
I drive down the highway with the windows open, and
that apparently is way worse than driving with your A
C on because of the drag. And this guy he
also doesn't he coast and cut his engine early if
he's approaching a parking space, so he'll he'll coast the
last whatever, however far he can to to park his car.
And gurtis actually on his site. I think it's clean
(15:25):
MPG dot com. If that's not his site, he writes
heavily for it. Um he answered an age old question
for me. If you are going to be idling for
longer than seven seconds, turn your car off because it
takes about seven seconds worth of gas to turn a
fuel injected car over. He always wondered, Yeah, I've never
(15:47):
heard like an whoever told me? I didn't believe. I
believe this guy. So if you're sitting like at a
at a drive through or something, turn the car off. Yeah,
you know that's a great idea. Yeah. And then there's
some slightly more advanced techniques for people who are really
into this patient people like what like ridge riding. I
don't know that that was actually another term coined by
(16:10):
Gurtis that. Um, I hope i'm saying his last name, right,
I've never met the guy, so okay, um it's where
you hug the far right line solid line of the
far right lane on the highway. Uh. And one of
the there's You do this for two reasons. One is
to make yourself really obvious and noticeable the other drivers
so they have an opportunity to pass you early because
(16:32):
you're going Yeah, because I think he drives like fifty
or um So then I was probably wrong about sixty
because this guy is probably gonna drive at the optimal
speed on the highway. Um. So number one, it makes
you obvious because you're not positioned like everybody else. But secondly,
in bad weather, especially rain, you're actually taking yourself out
(16:56):
of those depressions that have worn into the asphalt with
huddles are forming sure running through through water. Yeah I
didn't realize that. Yeah, definitely, because your your wheels are moving,
but you're not getting anywhere. Yeah, that makes sense. So
you you've lost traction. You're a hyper miler, Josh, in
a way, I just know a lot about it. Again,
I'll never do it right. Uh. And then probably my
(17:18):
favorite is distant anticipatory focus d a F. Yes. So
Gerti's basically tries to drive like he doesn't have brakes.
Oh yeah, okay, he maintains a very slow, steady pace.
So he's looking several lights ahead right to uh to
time his driving to that light. He's trying to accelerate
(17:38):
slowly to to keep in time with these these lights
because he wants nothing but green lights. That makes sense.
He never has to use his brakes. That saves quite
a bit too. Of course, this is the same guy
who also turns off his ignition and coats into parking spaces.
So yeah, but that's pretty much hyper miling. I mean
there's actually a lot more to it, taking advantage of
other cars, like using eighteen wheelers to draft off of Yeah,
(18:01):
well that's a lot of the NASCAR guys hyper mile.
They don't call it that. I don't know what they
call it. Someone probably has that answer, but they Yeah,
during um, the caution when they have like debris on
the track and the pace cars there, Yeah, the little guy,
I'll throw out the caution flag and that means everyone's
got to slow down until they clean all the crowd
off the track, and um, the A lot of the
(18:23):
drivers will cut their engines and coast for a while
and then cut them back on and then cut them again,
and then while they're racing, they will draft. That's a
very popular technique to save fuel because in NASCAR, if
you the fewer stops the better. Sure, obviously, yeah you
Nascar guy, No me neither. I watched it for a while. Remember,
(18:43):
I really love the origin of NASCAR bootlegging. Other than that,
I'm not really in the NASCAR. My sister in law, Sarah,
who I was just with in Ohio, is big in
the NASCAR, and we always give her hard time. Yeah,
we call her a bead neck and stuff. Yeah, it's good. Well, um,
anything about it? No, I mean really until until we
(19:04):
come up with an alternative fuel source or you know
standard hundred mile an hour or hundred miles per gallon
uh cars. It's a good idea hyper mile yeah we
should say, though, I think exercise some caution if you
want to try this stuff out, because you know some cars,
if you turn the key off, don't turn all the
way off because you're steering. Roo whe will walk up.
It's a good point. And I think sometimes the air
(19:25):
brakes are activated when you start the car, right yeah,
so I think you want to keep keep it set
to ignition or start keep it set to the on
position so you can still run your radio. No, so
you still see lights on the dashboard, right yeah, So
just just be careful if you want to try some
experimentation here. You were really good at c O A buddy. Well,
I could see somebody have any idea how many times
(19:47):
we would have been suedere not for you? And just
my mind's eye had just pictured someone saying Josh and
Chuck said to cut my engine, and all of a sudden,
like who is this Josh and Chuck, they go to
pull into the car to the parking space and they're
steering wheel lock sup and have a record six miles
an hour. Well good, all right, that's hyper miling. And
e p A. Well, we'll keep an eye out to
(20:07):
see if the e p A actually does do any
real world testing. Good idea. Let's se listener mail, I
think so okay, nowhere to go, but up right, Josh,
we are going to call this what was in my
inbox before I came in listener mail. Awesome, that's a secret. Actually,
(20:28):
I shouldn't ever revealed that the good way to get
a listener mails to email me the day we record.
It's not a secret anymore. This is about the Peter principal.
Remember we did a podcast about the fact that many
companies will not demote somebody, that will just fire somebody
if they're incompetent. And this is from Jennifer and she
says that she worked for the same company, has still
(20:52):
working there for five or six years, and last November
she was worked her way up to the top of
sales support and she was kicked down to reception instead
of fired. And she was told about her new job
and said that she was getting the demotion because she
was the weakest person on the team and a little harsh,
I thought so. And she asked him during the meeting
(21:13):
why didn't they just fire her? And they said because
she was still a very important part of the teams.
It's the worst part of the team. Exactly, very important
part of our team, but the worst part. Don't forget that, uh.
And she said that um, her pay didn't change, so
she's actually a very high paid receptionist and um actually
(21:34):
makes more than a lot of people on the sales
team now at the reception desk, which I'll bet the
sales team just loves. And we actually did have someone
else emailed another company that said that they practiced this
as well. Well, that's fantastic. Two out of several hundred thousand, Yeah,
not too bad. And she also adds here at the
end that we sometimes give shout outs to our men
and women overseas for fighting and Iraq and Afghanistan and
(21:57):
to support them. And she says that she's an Air
Force wife and that we should mention families occasionally they're
left behind because it's very hard on them, do it, Chuck.
And my brother in law is in the Marine Corps
and he has been deployed many times. My sister Michelle
and her kids shall be in Reagan or often left
at home for months at a time, and it is
hard on the family. So when we say support the troops,
(22:19):
we mean the whole family, the whole kid and can
do it nicely, don't chuck, Thank you nicely. Good. That's it. Well,
if you want to Mia Colpa out of chuck, you
can email us at stuff podcast at how stuff works
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how
(22:42):
stuff works, check out our blogs on the house. Stuff
works dot com home page. Brought to you by the
reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Josh Clark
Chuck Bryant
Show Links
Order Our BookRSSStoreSYSK ArmyAboutPopular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Death, Sex & Money
Anna Sale explores the big questions and hard choices that are often left out of polite conversation.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.