Practical fuel saving
There is much discussion about fuel consumption these days.
The price of domestic fuel at the pump has sky-rocketed,
mirroring the increase in crude oil process, now nudging
$100 a barrel. Four years ago we were paying less than 20
baht a liter. Now you are looking at 30 baht per liter. And
what will 2008 bring us?
So what should you do? First off, do you really need 95
octane fuel for your car? Check with the manufacturer’s
book. You may find that 91 octane is fine. And it is
cheaper.
Gasohol? Right now I’d give it careful consideration only. I
would wait and see what happens with other vehicles, similar
to your own, letting them be the mobile guinea pigs. Or
perhaps bunny rabbits. And in addition, whilst gasohol is
cheaper at the pump, it doesn’t go as far on the road
comparing it to straight petrol. Perhaps when you can get
E20 fuel for the new E20 compatible engines, might be the
time to re-evaluate.
Fuel miser Toyota Prius
Another certain way of improving the vehicle’s fuel
consumption is to make sure the engine is in tune. How long
is it since you had a service that included plugs, points,
ignition timing, valve clearances and the like? To get the
best fuel economy, the engine must be in its best state of
tune. Inefficiency makes for fuel wastage. The engineers say
you can save up to 30 percent here. But that is in extreme
situations only. Like one plug that doesn’t fire!
Another factor that influences the fuel economy is the
rolling resistance of your tyres. Running under-inflated
uses fuel. Bringing your tyre pressures up to a few psi
above recommended levels will help. There’s another 5
percent here.
Aggressive driving (speeding, rapid acceleration and
braking) wastes fuel. It can increase fuel use by 33 percent
at highway speeds and by 5 percent around town. Cruising at
more than 100 kph also lowers fuel economy by as much as 20
percent. Steady cruising is the answer of course. Better for
fuel economy, and the comfort of the passengers.
Of course, the vehicle you drive also affects the fuel
consumption, and I found the following examples given by the
US Environmental Protection Agency.
First off, the top three gas guzzlers!
Lamborghini L-147 Murcielago
Aston Martin V12 Vanquish
Bentley Continental GT
Since all of these vehicles will cost more than 20 million
baht in this country, I think any estimate of their fuel
economy is a total waste of my time and yours! When you’ve
splashed out the equivalent of 10 three bedroom houses and
bought your Lambo Murcielago, do you care about its fuel
consumption? I doubt it. I certainly wouldn’t!
The US EPA does also publish a list of fuel efficient
vehicles, and not surprisingly, the hybrid vehicles are on
the top of the list. The pundits suggest that we should
choose from the good fuel economy vehicles and think of the
money we save. However, it’s not that simple from the over
all point of view. I have always believed that fuel is the
cheapest part of motoring. Depreciation is the most
expensive. Think about it.
For interest only, here are the top three from the EPA ‘good
guys’ list:
Honda Insight (Hybrid)
Honda Civic (Hybrid)
Toyota Prius (Hybrid)
Mercedes-Benz looking
to reduce road toll
In Europe, the combination of alcohol and speed are
rightfully targeted as major causes of road accidents. In
Thailand you can add in alcohol, speed (both kinds),
motorcycles and no helmet, but there is another deadly
factor - falling asleep at the wheel - which is not always
given the profile it deserves in developing strategies to
combat the road toll.
In an effort to make driving safer for both the occupants of
the vehicle and their fellow road users, Mercedes-Benz is
working on a system that recognizes tiredness-related
changes in personal driving style and warns the driver that
it’s time to take a break when these changes are detected.
Now entering the final stages of development and expected to
go into series production in 2009, the Attention Assist
system constantly monitors typical driving patterns to
establish an individual profile and, taking into account
factors like the time of day, the duration of the trip and
steering behavior, makes a decision on whether the driver is
becoming tired when there is deviation from this saved data.
Oops! Dozed
off!
The development of the system began with
a series of experiments in the driving simulator in Berlin
followed by motorway trials involving 420 test people and
more than 500,000 kilometers of road travel. Further
long-term tests are to be conducted in different climate
zones, city traffic, poor roads and on long-distance trips.
The system records the angle of the steering wheel, speed,
acceleration, the use of indicators and pedals, as well as
external factors such as a side wind or an uneven road
surface. If changes occur within the established parameters
of the individual’s driving behavior (with steering behavior
having proved a particularly telling indicator according to
Mercedes) a warning sounds and an alert symbol appears in
the instrument cluster so the driver knows it’s time for a
break.
Aside from the obvious lack of a good night’s sleep, the
program has identified monotony caused by unchanging road
conditions on long trips and a lack of other traffic on the
road, particularly in darkness, as a key factor in driver
fatigue. Crucially it has also been found that drivers don’t
recognize tiredness early enough as it gradually creeps up,
diminishing awareness and reaction times, meaning that an
objective observer as provided by the Attention Assist
system offers an important method of early intervention.
Mercedes makes the point that although official statistics
cite tiredness as the reason behind around one percent of
all serious traffic accidents, the real impact of falling
asleep at the wheel is likely to be much higher because of
the difficulty in proving that tiredness is a contributing
factor (as opposed to speed, alcohol or drugs which can be
established as factors through testing and forensic
examination of a crash scene). It is argued that tiredness
is probably responsible for a higher proportion of serious
traffic accidents than alcohol, but no matter what the
percentages say, most drivers would agree that any system
that can effectively address the issue is likely to save
lives.
Other systems such as Eyealert have been on the market for a
couple of years but Mercedes new system is unique as the
first technology to use continual driver observation and
establish and analyze typical behavior patterns to combat
the problem.
A further development of this system could probably see
whether you are just a bad driver! Big brother is watching!
Autotrivia Quiz
Last week I mentioned that the first manufacturer to
produce a million cars in one year was Ford in 1922. I asked
when did the first European manufacturer manage this, and
what was the car? It was the VW in 1955.
So to this week. Which motor sport competitor competed in
hill climbs as both a man and a woman?
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be the first correct
answer to email [email protected]
Good luck!
Toyota and GM - which
one is really number1?
In 2005, Yeald magazine, the interactive investor
journal, reported that in the fight between Toyota and GM,
the Japanese company had a productivity growth that was
twice that of Detroit, a profit margin of close to 7 percent
in a 2-3 percent world, and market capitalization exceeding
that of GM, it is no wonder analysts have taken notice of
Toyota’s success. The analyst wrote, just look at how many
cars next to you, ahead of you, and in your rear-view mirror
have the Toyota insignia on them. Cars on the road rather
than on the lot, customer retention, and new sales of
product that moves upscale as customers earn more.
Innovation is in there too of course - who would not want a
Prius in an environmentally conscious world.
12 months ago, the Herald Tribune Business pages reported
that Toyota Motor planned to sell 9.34 million vehicles in
2007, a figure that analysts said would be big enough to put
it ahead of the troubled General Motors as the world’s
largest auto company.
Toyota reported global group sales in 2006 of 8.8 million
cars and trucks, below GM’s forecast for 2006 sales of 9.2
million vehicles. But the figures Friday showed the two
rival car giants on starkly different trajectories, with
Toyota expecting to add a half million in vehicle sales in
2007, at a time when GM was closing plants and laying off
workers.
Chev Volt
At the same time, in 2006, Toyota, the
largest Japanese carmaker, posted a 17.2 percent jump in net
profit to a record $12.32 billion, enough to make it the
world’s most profitable manufacturing company. At the same
time, GM, which had held the top spot for 75 years, was
reported as struggling to recover from a $10.6 billion loss
in 2005.
Toyota’s profits continued into 2007 and you can safely
predict will continue into 2008. However, GM, the world’s
former giant, is in damage control, and has been shutting
several factories and slashing tens of thousands of jobs in
an attempt to turn around its recent poor performance, which
saw it slump to a record loss of 39 billion dollars in the
third quarter of 2007. Read the business pages of your
newspaper to get the ‘real’ story.
Toyota released further figures in December 2007 predicting
more growth in 2008 after unseating GM in total sales in
2007 to become the world’s top producing automaker.
Toyota expanded in emerging markets such as China, Russia
and Brazil to lift vehicle sales by five percent next year,
despite the slowing economy in the US, still the most
important marketplace for Toyota. The new figure set by the
Japanese giant is 9.85 million vehicles globally.
To show just how GM has stagnated in the face of the
Japanese onslaught, GM had been the world’s best-selling
automaker for seven decades and had set an all-time record
of selling 9.55 million vehicles way back in 1978.
The reasons for its fall from grace are multiple, but
undoubtedly it has been hampered by slowness in converting
top decisions into concrete action, as just one of them.
So looking at the fact that Toyota has been making record
profits for many years, while GM is selling at a loss, who
was Number 1? And now that Toyota is producing more
vehicles, there can be no doubt about it.
Personally, I would not want to see GM slip back into the
more that FoMoCo appears to be in, especially with its long
history as an automaker, but let us hope that vehicles such
as the Chev Volt can propel GM into the new ‘green’
marketplace. And back to profitability!
