Sustain Myself

A lot of us try to maximise the milage from the cars we have, whether they are new efficient cars or ageing guzzlers. We try not to use the air conditioning as it uses more fuel, keep the tyres inflated properly, don’t accelerate aggressively etc in an attempt to remain efficient in our petrol usage.

I sold my 22L/100k’s (yes, you read that right, 300k’s from a 65L tank) Nissan Skyline a few years ago and these days my wife has a Subaru Forester (~10L/100k’s,) which isn’t great and I ride a Honda CB600F (~4L/100k’s) to work.

The Forester is a great car, but I am discouraged by its fuel consumption. The problem is that unless we buy an expensive new car, there are very few family-sized vehicles that do any better. Today, while reading through my RSS reader, I came across a site I had never seen before… Eco Modder. These guys make small modifications to their vehicles to increase their drag coefficient so their fuel consumption is reduced. And sometimes dramatically reduced.

One owner improved their vehicle fuel consumption by 15% by fitting a boat tail to it.

The site may appear at first like an every-other-day online community, but there are a lot of tools and guides and advice on there which is awesome. If you register, you can keep track of your vehicles economy on a graph within your profile.

You can see our vehicle on the site here. I will add my bike when I have the required data.

After adding your vehicle and updating your profile, you can read about some mods.

Some worth mentioning;

• Scangauge installation – Buying a scangauge (available on eBay and displays in metric) can improve your efficiency by simply displaying it in front of you. By driving better, people can save up to 33% of their fuel consumption. I just purchased one for the Forester and will write what I find.
• Roof rack (OEM as well as aftermarket)
• Mud Flaps (deletion)
• Alternator Removal
• Sprocket Swap (Motorbike)

Have a look at the mods this guy has made and their respective improvements.

Then, once you have made any changes to your car, you can read through the list of 100+ driving techniques. Such as not coming to a complete stop unless you must, keeping windows and sunroof shut, using cruise control, not leaving your headlights on.

There are a lot of small, low impact changes that each of us can make to our daily driving/riding habits that can greatly improve our vehicles fuel efficiency. I will be keeping a log of my vehicles’ economy on ecomodder.com and on this blog also. I see it as a bit of a challenge. I recommend you get a Scangauge or at least start keeping a log book so you can keep on top of your consumption.

A lot of my time has recently been consumed by thinking of ways I can boot my fossil fuel burning Subaru (Farewell, My Subaru?) and replace it with a 100% carbon neutral alternative.

I don’t want to have an electric car, I actually think that spending silly amounts of money developing electric power systems and electric recharge stations for cars is a backwards step. They still burn fossil fuels, just not directly. I wrote about Electric cars recently.

I am worried about getting an older diesel car to do a Bio Diesel conversion to it because, although there is a fuelling station for Bio Diesel in Sydney, it is across the other side of the city and I wouldn’t be able to get there very often to fill up. I did find this post on other filling stations in Sydney, but it is from almost 3 years ago. There is also a lot of information available on making your own Bio Diesel, but I simply do not have the space required to do it.

So, when I visited a link posted to Twitter by Sighmon (the recent winner of World Visions ‘learn about poverty’ competition) it got me a little excited. Making your own Ethanol ? Great idea!

35 Gallons (or ~140 litres) of Sugar-based ethanol per week! That’s about 120 litres more than we use at the moment. But this might also be used in my bike.  Unfortunately, there seems to be a distinct lack of information relating to the use of 100% ethanol in my vehicle.

The other option is an LPG conversion for my car which is around AUD $3500. LPG is cheaper to buy and burns much cleaner than petroleum based fuels. It is, however, still based on fossil fuels.

I am at a loss. We dont use much petrol, but I’d like us to use less. There is a lot of international and local support for the use of Bio Diesel and I think this will likely be the route that we decide to take, if we can make the room somewhere.

For a long time I have been undecided about my stance on Hybrid vehicles. Yes, they produce considerably less CO2 and other toxins through the exhaust than conventional internal combustion powered vehicles. But, one fact that people seem to forget (or choose to ignore) is that these vehicles are powered by batteries with a max life of 10 years!

Now, putting the Prius to the side for a moment, Doug Fine (who is a bit of a hero of mine) wrote in his book ‘Farewell, my Subaru’ about how he converted a ROAT (Ridiculously Oversized American Truck – or Ford F250) to use Vegetable oil instead of Diesel and is now almost entirely carbon neutral.

If it is possible to make big diesel cars and trucks like this run on a freely available waste product and produce so little emissions, why is it so hard to do? Surely there is a market for this fuel source? There is definitely enough supply. I know of one Bio-Diesel fuelling station in Sydney and it is over an hours drive from my house.

So, back to the Prius. How is it that everybody has quickly jumped on the Prius bandwagon without ever questioning the use and environmental impact of all this iron and nickel and anything else toxic in the batteries? Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti Hybrid vehicles, I just think that more research is required and that a better solution can be obtained (I am a big fan of Hydrogen).

A lot of reports exist about the damage that these batteries can do to the environment. One report, aptly titled ‘Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage’ writes this;

Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

That is a hardcore statement and if true, damns Hybrids of all their eco responsibility.

Another report (although considerably older) named ‘Lead-Based Battery Used in Electric Car May Pose Hazards’ quotes the following;

Exposure to low levels of lead can harm the brains of young children, reducing intelligence and impairing neurobehavioral development, studies have found. Very severe exposure can cause coma, convulsions and death.

With this in mind, it appears the manufacturers are trying to brighten their image and offer a ‘buy back scheme’ for their batteries so they can be properly recycled. Some defenders of Hybrid technology suggest that the levels of toxicity in Hybrid vehicle batteries (Nickel Metal Hydride – Or NiMH) are lower than their lead and Nickel Cadmium equivalents. I’m not too sure that any level of toxicity, especially in a car sold as the green alternative, should be acceptable

Why do manufacturers continue to push technologies that are becoming more and more obsolete? Personally, I think its because with less fuel being required, they need to ensure that they can continue selling you something after you have purchased the car. By having the batteries ‘run out’ after 10 years, they guarantee your return patronage and a cool $5000 every decade as opposed to giving you the opportunity to fill-up for next-to-nothing at your local Chinese or Fish ‘n Chip shop.

What are you opinions of this? Perhaps I have over looked something? Are you for or against the Hybrid vehicle movement?