WEBVTT - Fuel Economy: Good to the Last Drop 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:14.800 Forward Thinking, either everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:16.799 podcast that looks at the future and says get your 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.800 motor running on the highway. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:23.599 Joe McCormick, and we wanted to talk a bit about 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:26.960 the concept of fuel economy and miles per gallon and 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:32.040 kind of demystify it because there's a lot of misunderstanding 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.480 out there. I think about what makes a car economic 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:37.920 as far as fuel consumption goes, and and the behaviors 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.840 that that tie into fuel economy. Right, well, it seems easy. 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:42.760 It seems like you know, you've got this this miles 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:45.040 per gallon thing on a little sticker on your car 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.680 when you buy it, and and better miles per gallon 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:51.440 is better, right, higher miles per gallon equals Yes. Yeah, 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:55.520 I think, um, everybody's heard these words, but there's some 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:57.960 of these words that I don't know why certain terms 0:00:58.040 --> 0:00:59.840 end up this way. But you know this concept of 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:04.080 semantic satiation where you hear a phrase so many times 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.720 that it stops having meanings. It becomes sort of a cone. 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:10.920 You're just you're just you hear it, and it just like, 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:12.679 oh yeah, those are words that I've heard in that 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.240 order before, but it doesn't actually have any applications. It 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:18.600 just sounds, you know, that's pretty much everything. My wife, 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:21.520 it's kind of like that. It's a joke. I know, 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:27.240 I know, you're a sweet man. Okay, So let's make 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:29.960 miles per gallon reel again. Well, first of all, let's 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.280 apologize to anyone who's not in the United States who yeah, 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:35.480 because this this is going to be a very US 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.320 centric kind of of topic, mostly because when we're talking 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.720 about miles prig gallen, we're talking about a government agency 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.280 in the United States that actually tests this stuff, Environmental 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.040 Protection Agency. Yes, the e p a UH in the 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:53.120 US tests vehicles and then gives the miles pregallon rating 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:57.000 for both city miles and highway miles for every vehicle 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:59.480 sold in the United States. Well, and it's it's not 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.280 that foreign countries don't have some kind of Some countries 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:04.320 that are not the US rather have you know, don't 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:05.840 have never heard of this kind of thing. You know, 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:09.600 there's there's either leaders per kilometer or um. I think 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:14.480 that the designation in many metric using countries, these days 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.360 is leaders per hundred kilometers actually, but I'll get into 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.600 that in a moment. Right, A hundred that actually seems 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.960 maybe more useful because it's more averaged out, it's more 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.240 averaged out, and it gives you a more manageable number 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:30.560 to think about. Well, yeah, I guess miles per gallon though, 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.480 I guess that's comes from some kind of averaging process. 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:35.280 But then, but then, you know, it's not that every 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:39.480 vehicle has the same amount of storage space like tank space, right, 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:43.000 So miles per gallon is really only useful if you're 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:46.400 actually doing the math in your head of well, my 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:50.080 my tank can hold twelve point five gallons and it 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.840 gets forty miles to the gallon, which means that a 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:55.960 full tank of gas, I've got to contact my child 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.119 who's in school and can still do math. Um. Yeah, 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.040 I mean that's but if you're talking about miles to 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.320 the hundred, you know, how many leaders for a hundred kilometers, 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.520 then that gives you a better idea of how far 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:09.920 you can go based upon a certain amount of fuel. 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:12.480 And it's also when you're comparing vehicles that makes it 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:14.400 pretty easy. But what does the e p A do 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:17.920 well Technically, it does one of two things. Either will 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:21.720 test a vehicle at its National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.799 Laboratory in vf e L, which is an an arbor Michigan. UH. 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:28.519 It will either put a vehicle through tests there, or 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:33.560 they will also accept vehicle manufacturers data on the subject. 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.680 So if the manufacturer has done its own tests and 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.320 the data, they can send the data into the e 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:40.880 p A, and the e p A will use that 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:44.000 and its rating. What happens if they're not entirely truthful. 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.560 That's a good question, and I don't have the answer 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:48.680 to it. I would I would suspend. I'm hoping that 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:51.480 they that they only accept data of a certain scientific rigor. 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:56.720 I would imagine, so, although I cannot that, I am 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.720 fairly certain. And that's well at any rate in the 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:03.000 United States anyway, particularly in well not everywhere, but many 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:05.400 places the United States, you have to do what are 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.480 called emissions testing, where you are making sure that your 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:12.560 vehicle emissions are within certain parameters. And UH, I would 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:15.520 suspect that if a lot of vehicles were testing outside 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:19.520 of it of a particular make and models. But anyway, 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.280 that's that's related to malls pre Gallant. It's not analogous 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:24.920 to it. It's not exactly the same thing, but any anyway, 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:29.120 So the e p a UH uses this information not 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.720 only to put on the stickers of cars, and by 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:33.560 the way, those stickers have changed over the last couple 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:35.640 of years, they've been updated, and I'll talk about that 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.279 in a second, But they also provide this information about 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.640 the fuel economy to various other departments within the United 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.359 States government. Some of them would be pretty easy for 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.000 you to guess, like the Department of Energy. The Department 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.920 of Energy uses those to create its annual Fuel Economy Guide. 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.960 They also send this information to the Department of Transportation, 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.719 which uses this information to create its Corporate Average Fuel 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:05.200 Economy program I'll soon as Cafe CF and it doesn't 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:07.200 have a little accent over it, so who knows. And 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.080 then of course they send it off to everyone's favorite 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:16.160 governmental agency in the entire world, Internal Revenue RS. That's 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:20.640 for their gas guzzler taxes programs where they get taxed 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:24.640 more if you're having a vehicle that is not very efficient. Yeah, 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.800 so there are a lot of different incentives to getting 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.359 a fuel efficient car, one of which is just that 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:32.240 you don't want to spend so much money whenever you 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.600 have to go to the to the gas station, right, 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:36.880 you don't want to have to go frequently. Even if 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:40.920 you hate the planet Earth, You've actually got a totally good, 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.800 selfish reason to want to get really good fuel economy. Yeah, 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:46.000 you don't want to have to refuel all the time. 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:48.240 You don't have to be some kind of environmentalists to 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.719 to really want to maximize milesburg Allen. Sure. Yeah, you 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:54.279 you want to be able to to stretch your dollar 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:56.720 as far as it will go, right in the United States, 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.160 But assuming you don't hate the Earth, well, assuming you 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:01.799 don't hate the Earth, you'll also want to be very 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.760 economic with your fuel consumption to produce fewer greenhouse gases, 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:11.080 to also create less demand in general for fuel, because 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:13.719 that causes you know that that's there's a lot of 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:18.000 energy that's just put into getting fuel, refining fuel, getting 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.239 it to the place where it needs to be. There's 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:24.960 also from a national perspective, there is a a an 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:30.560 incentive to reduce our dependence upon foreign oil politically. Politically, yes, 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:34.240 because there are a lot of purposes reasons there, and 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:36.960 you know, granted that's been changing a lot recently anyway, 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.320 with different techniques for getting oil out of the ground. 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:44.480 But all of these factor into reasons why fuel economy 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.560 is a big deal, from the very personal to the 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.600 global scale. So the way they do this is they 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.239 test out these vehicles in this facility and they try 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:58.000 two different general styles of driving, which have undergone some 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:02.440 tweaking over the years as Bull's driving habits in general 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.440 have changed. Keep in mind, all of this is very 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:10.760 very generalized. The individual driving style is going to determine 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.560 a lot about the fuel economy of a specific vehicle 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.920 more than just these tests. So Lauren could be driving, uh, 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.800 the exact same type of car that Joe drives, but 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.160 both of your driving styles may be very different, so 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.200 your actual experience of how frequently you need to refuel 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:29.360 could also be different. It also depends, I mean, because 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.280 because I think, Jonathan, that you're about to talk about 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:35.600 highway versus city driving, and and that also depends highly 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.120 on um. I mean, you know, what you would consider 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:40.880 a highway here in Atlanta, you perhaps would not reach 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:42.920 the speeds that sometimes of day that you would reach 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.560 on a highway in any other place on the planet 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.920 besides Los Angeles. Well, Los Angeles and Atlanta have a 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:51.480 lot in common as far as the driving habits are concerned. 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.320 Uh yeah, I mean it's in general. The way they 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.840 define this, it's it's called city versus highway. But really 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.840 what they mean is with highway driving, it's you're the 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.960 idea that you're traveling at what the speed limit would 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:10.000 be on your typical highway, at cruising speed without a 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.720 lot of acceleration or deceleration or breaking. So, in other words, 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:17.080 your engine would be operating at a consistent level for 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:20.920 a prolonged period of time. How many miles pre gallon 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:23.640 would you get in that set of circumstances. That's so 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.960 that's highway miles, and those, of course tend to be greater. 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:29.119 I mean they are. They are greater than city miles, 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.600 because what city miles are. That's the idea of if 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:33.640 you're driving around in an area where you do have 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:38.000 to decelerate or accelerate depending upon you know, traffic lights, 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.600 traffic itself, stop signs, that kind of thing. Um, whether 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:43.880 you're going to be using the brakes a lot, whether 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:45.920 you're gonna have a lot of idle time. So let's 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:47.920 say that you come up to a stop stop light 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.000 where you're gonna be sitting there for about thirty seconds 0:08:50.000 --> 0:08:51.880 just running your engine with your brakes to press down. 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.240 Yeah exactly. That ends up consuming fuel. So your city 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.320 miles are always fewer than your highway miles. But they 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.240 test this in laboratory additions. So first of all, it's 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.400 not directly analogous to what you are going to experience 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.400 on a day to day basis driving your vehicle. Right, So, 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.600 if you're driving your vehicle, whether it's in Atlanta, which 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.840 can be a traffic nightmare for anyone who has traveled 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:17.440 through our beautiful city, or someplace where the traffic is 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.200 considered to be pretty light and well managed, it's still 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:23.160 going to be different than what you see on that sticker. 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:25.440 You might have a little sticker shock when you start 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.640 actually figuring out how many miles prell in your car 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.800 quote unquote really gets compared to what it says on 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.240 the sticker. But that depends both on the real world 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.680 situation you're in and you're driving habits. Now, back in 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:38.559 two thousand and eleven, the e p A and the 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:42.960 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration redesigned the miles per gallon 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:45.800 stickers on cars. So if you haven't bought a car 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:48.520 recently or haven't been shopping for a car recently. The 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:51.800 stickers will look a little different to you now, depending 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.400 upon if they've rolled them out yet or not. They were. 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.800 I think they began in all model year cars. Yeah, um, 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.679 but but I think that was a It wasn't. I'm 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:04.719 not sure if it was mandatory. It was not mandatory. 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:07.440 It was one of those things that people that manufacturers 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.199 and dealerships could opt into doing, and more and more 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.280 are doing that because it tends to reflect well in sales. 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:17.040 But generally the stickers now have lots of stuff on 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:20.320 there besides just these two numbers. So originally you would see, 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:22.880 you know, the highway highway miles per gallon and the 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:25.560 city miles per gallon. Now it goes into things like 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:29.880 a comparison of the energy use and cost between uh 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:34.880 that particular vehicle and a typical gasoline powered vehicle the average. 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:39.480 So take all the vehicles across the entire line average 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.600 that out, that would compare your vehicle, the vehicle you're 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:47.319 looking at, versus that that hypothetical average vehicle. So and 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:50.520 the amount of of savings specifically in fuel that you 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:52.960 would assuming that you would get that because you could 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:54.760 have you could have a you could be looking at 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.160 a vehicle that falls below this average, in which case 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.760 you would see that there's a deficit there um. But 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:04.560 it would give you the idea of UH, how it 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:10.120 matches up against this sort of hypothetical average vehicle. It 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:12.360 would also give you estimates on how much you'll save 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:16.439 UH per year on fuel costs compared to this average vehicle. 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:18.520 So it might say, you know, if you were to 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.199 buy this, you would save two thousand dollars per year 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.400 on fuel costs or eight thousand dollars per year. It 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:25.199 all depends on what kind of vehicle you're looking at. 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:28.200 It also gives ratings on how your vehicle compares to 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:32.280 others when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, which again, 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:34.640 if you're environmentally conscious, that could be a very important 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:38.360 component to buying a car. There also will give an 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:40.760 estimate of how much fuel or electricity it requires to 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.560 drive one miles, So this is more similar to the 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:46.280 approach you were talking about about the leaders to a 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.560 hundred kilometers. This would give you an idea of how 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:51.760 how many how much gas do you need to go 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:54.080 one hundred miles or how much of a charge does 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:56.280 it take to go a hundred miles? So you can 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.160 kind of make that determination of is this vehicle efficient 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:01.880 for the way I use vehicles. If I go on 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:05.520 a lot of cross country trips, Uh, an electric vehicle 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.880 may not be very Uh, it might not be a 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.440 good decision for me, just because the way that I 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:13.160 would need to recharge it. I don't know that I 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.120 would be able to hit enough recharging stations, and the 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.440 recharging time it takes to get back to a full 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:21.120 charge might mean that a different kind of vehicle would 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:23.680 be better for me. But if I do a lot 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.120 of short trips in a city, an electric vehicle may 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:30.040 make perfect sense. So these are the sort of things 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.280 that allow you to make those kind of decisions with 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.080 as much information as possible. It also gives you the 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.200 idea of the driving range information for electric vehicles, plus 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:40.480 the actual amount of time it takes to charge one 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:44.640 to full charge from empty. And uh, like you said, Lauren, 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:50.080 the labels began to roll out late into It's still 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:52.559 being adopted in some places and some places it may 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:54.840 not have been adopted yet. But if you see one 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:56.839 of these, that's what you know. That's what this is 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.319 all about is to give the consumer more information when 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.199 it comes to few economy, and of course things have 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.640 made that more complicated. Everything from hybrid cars and electric 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.960 vehicles have made this a very difficult conversation to have 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:12.360 in some ways because we don't all we're not all 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:14.880 using the same power source, right, We're not all using 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.160 the same sort of fuel, So that makes it a 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.360 little tricky when you're starting to try and make comparisons. Right, 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.920 what is a gallon of gas compared to the output 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.439 of electricity from a nuclear power plant? For this is 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.719 a coal power plant. Are you are you charging your 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:33.680 car at peak our journey? Yeah? Sure, yeah. There are 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:36.560 a lot of different factors. It makes it pretty complex, 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.079 so I can understand why this is a confusing subject. 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:41.160 But even if you're just looking at miles per gallon, 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:46.080 that alone gets pretty confusing. That also ties into a 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:49.360 tool I wanted to mention, the instant miles per gallon readout, 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:52.320 which is also known as an instant fuel consumption display 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.840 or instant fuel economy gauge. Now, if you've ever driven 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.600 a hybrid vehicle, you've seen one of these, because they're 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.480 standard and just about re hybrid vehicle. I've ever seen. 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.400 This is. This is what tells you how much gas 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:09.080 you are consuming at the current moment, at that precise moment. 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:13.200 I've seen even non hybrid vehicles. Sure, there are non 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:15.319 hybrid vehicles that have it's just that you find them 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.160 in all hybrid vehicles at this point as far as 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:20.600 I know. But yeah, this is starting to become something 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:23.040 that you'll see in other vehicles as well. Uh. In 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.400 fact that I've driven, well, I've written in a couple 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:29.360 of vehicles. At least I don't drive, so I am 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:31.800 the wrong person to talk about the personal experience. But 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.440 how these work. They actually have lots of different sensors, 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:38.320 and the sensors are all collecting data on various things 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:41.120 that are going on inside your car. For example, the 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:43.960 how hard your engine is working. Their sensors that measure 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.280 that and factor that. There are sensors that measure the 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.280 fuel flow rate through the fuel lines of your vehicle. 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:54.520 There are manifold pressure uh sensors. Now, your manifold, in 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.560 case you don't know, the intake manifold is a series 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.120 of tubes that distributes air into your engine so that 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.800 it can mix with the fuel so that it will combust. 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.960 How are you laughing at joke? A series of tubes. 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:09.160 It's not the Internet. It's not the Internet. It's a 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.320 totally different series of tubes. Um, But no, it is. 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:14.720 It is a series of tubes. It's you know, these 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:17.800 tubes open or clothes, depending upon the cycle that your 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.080 engine is in, because in some cycles it needs to 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.200 take an air and the rest of them you do 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.920 not want those to be open. But it will measure 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.400 the manifold pressure. There are other sensors that will measure 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.120 the throttle position of the vehicle. And there is a 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.280 central computer that takes in all this information that's been 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.840 gathered up by the sensors and then calculates how much 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.800 fuel is being consumed at that exact moment, sending that 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.480 information to some sort of display that is easily readable 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.400 uh for the driver. Uh. And this will give you 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:50.800 an instant look at what what your your car is 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:52.320 doing at that time. And in fact, if you have 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:54.160 a vehicle in the United States anyway, if you have 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:58.040 a vehicle that was manufactured after but does not have 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.600 one of these, it's very easy to get one installed. 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:05.720 Because any vehicle manufactured after that year sold in the 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:08.640 US had to have as part of it an onboard 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.600 diagnostic system or the O b D two. Uh. This 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.320 is essentially a computer on your in your car that 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:18.320 it's monitoring everything that's going on in your engine and 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:20.800 et cetera. Exactly. Yeah, So if your engine check engine 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.400 light comes on, that's because something has been detected by 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:26.600 this on board system and it tells the light to 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:28.680 come on, which of course tells you to put a 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.920 piece of tape over that light. Uh. The but no, 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.320 you can have you can have one of these gauges 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.520 connected to that system. I would not do this myself 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:40.600 because I am not a car guy. I would actually 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:42.040 have someone else do it for me. But I have 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:45.240 been told that it's one of those relatively easy things 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.160 to do for yourself if you're if you're the handy type, 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:51.400 I am not, so I would. I would leave that 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:53.880 to someone who is much more confident in their abilities 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.680 to work with the car without ruining it at any rate. 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.440 So you can get these that are standard with your vehicle, 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:02.680 some of them are optional with vehicles, and of course 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:05.800 there are aftermarket solutions like I just said, and this 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:07.760 will give you that instant look at what your car 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:09.359 is doing. So if you think of the e p 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.400 A numbers as kind of like climate and the instant 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.280 gauge as being weather. That's kind of the idea here, 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:18.640 Like the climate is sort of the long term, that's 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:21.359 what you can expect as sort of the average under 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:26.040 average conditions. The instant gauge gives you exactly what's happening 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:28.520 at that moment and can even tell you what which 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:33.720 of your behaviors as a driver are contributing to fuel consumption. Right, 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:35.320 I'm you know. Part of it is just that it's 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:37.439 making you more self aware of what you're doing, the 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:41.000 same way that that wearing a fitness tracker, it's going 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.560 to make you more self aware of your movement. And um, 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:47.040 that's that's that's part of what that entire switch from 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.919 miles per gallon to gallons per mile thought is about 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.000 researchers at Duke who had had an argument while car 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:57.040 pooling in a hybrid car put together a study true 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:59.800 backed they did, um, put put together a study and 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:04.200 found that when you express things as gallons per one miles, 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:07.240 people are able to make a better judgment call about 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.560 what car of of two, or or what kind of 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:14.159 upgrade is going to be more I love that the 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:17.280 reason that study was done is because some scientists had 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:21.159 an argument in the car pool lane. That to me, like, 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:23.360 that's how science has done. People. You get a bunch 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:25.800 of scientists together, maybe get a drink until not if 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:28.479 they're going to behind the wheel obviously, but you know, 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:30.679 then they start getting in an argument. Next thing, you know, 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:35.360 science happens. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's how quantum mechanics 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:37.920 came about. Turn off the A C. Let him get 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:41.480 a little cranky. Turning off the A C is one 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:44.840 of the ways that you can save fuel. Did you 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.240 look into So what are some ways that the average 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:51.920 person can get better miles per gallon or gallons per 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:56.480 mile or uh fuel ecout leaders per hundred kilometers. Let's 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:58.680 just say fuel economy out of their standard car. For 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.320 my sanity, let's say feel coconomy. Okay, well, you know, 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:03.520 like like I said, air conditioning, and there is a 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:05.560 little bit of buzz about you know, if if you're 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.400 cruising around town and you have your windows rolled down 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.359 and you accidentally form rhyme schemes while you're just talking 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.480 in conversation, Um, that's not a necessary part of the equation. 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.600 What would the drag from the open windows create uh 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:24.639 more taxing energy than the A C unit. Right, So 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:26.880 if you have the windows rolled up a C blasting, 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:28.720 or you had the A C off but the windows 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:32.200 rolled down and the drag affecting the car, is one 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.640 more inefficient than the other. Basically, if you're if you're 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:37.479 rolling around town, if you're if you're not getting up 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:40.560 to highway speeds of say over fifty miles an hour, 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.159 then go ahead roll your windows down and suffer, you know, 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:48.199 enjoy the terrific air if you like to roll your 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:50.639 windows down and have the A C blasting at fifty 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:55.720 because then your villain and captain planets. That's fair, that's fair. 0:19:56.920 --> 0:20:01.000 He sludge, what were their names? He has had some 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:06.240 words with me in the past. I'm forgetting entirely right now, Joe. Um. 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.159 But if you're if you're idling for more than a minute, 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:11.760 turning off your engine, it seems like it would be 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:13.600 a drastic thing. But if you know that a stoplight, 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:15.840 for example, is going to take more than more than 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:18.120 a minute, and and that's that's getting a little bit 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.639 into um. Something called a hyper miling, which I believe 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:23.840 Joe is going to talk about in a seconds. That's 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.800 also something that's going into the design of vehicles, and 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:29.240 we can probably expect to see that rolled out over 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:31.880 the next few years. A lot of more hybrid vehicles 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:33.960 do this all the time, but a lot of other 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.240 standard gasoline powered vehicles are starting to get into this 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:41.880 start stop or idle stop mode where if the car 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:45.120 detects that it's an idol, it'll end up shutting off 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.080 the engine. When you depress the accelerator, it will cause 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.840