How to save fuel when driving?

You can monitor your fuel use in Excel.
My car hasn't a handy trip meter, so I write the mileage on my petrol receipt. Get home and enter the litres (gets converted to gallons) and miles (previous miles subtracted) and out comes mpg.

r ransom wrote:An interesting article on gas rationing in canada

Rationing throughout history is very interesting to me. Cand places that manage to avoid rationing like canada using the carrot approach of easy carpooling, increasing public transport, etc, to reduce fuel use.

Although the news article focuses on the problem, and ignores the fuel sales rationing in British Columbia, Canada in 2021...anyway, what the artical fails fo point out is that the actions of individuals, especially ones that like saving money by saving fuel, can impact how much rationing, if any, is needed during tough times.  

I agree, stories of historical rationing are very interesting.

As of today, the risk of rationing in BC is zero. The mad dogs on the Prairies can and will keep you supplied.

The cost is the world price, though. Ouch --that's what we pay as well.  

A couple of years ago I needed new all terrains for my 4x4 and found some Y T reviews included the weights of the tyres they were testing, a huge variations between them made me go for one of the lightest but still performed well in the mild conditions I needed them for. I don't think tyre weight would normally factor in anyone's purchase decision, and paying someone to fit them you may never realise how much extra you added over oem.

I seem to remember with a fuel injected car unless you get entirely off the throttle fuel is still going in. So foot off when coasting!

I used to have a really realty fast sports car. One day my wife and I went separately to a function some distance from home, quiet country roads.  At the end she drove her very boring slow car at her slow pace and I drove as fast as I sensibly could. Almost an hours journey, she took about five minutes longer. After that illustration I havn't really bothered driving fast (to get there quicker) since.

And now we just have a Honda Jazz/Fit anyway :)

All great suggestions, R. Ransom. The best one for me is making sure that in 1 trip, I accomplish as much as possible and I make a list. I found that making each trip pay off also lowers the number of trip total that I take, and, BONUS : I plan exactly what I'm going to buy and can find the cheapest option online. So I reduce my expenses and do a lot less "impulse" buying.
I plan to make a "Victory garden" of sort. Plant maximally, harvest and share maximally. Planting for my chickens is something I have not done reliably (they only got all the kitchen scraps), but I didn't go out of my way to grow something for them. This year, I will, as chicken food is getting more expensive too.
Another, but maybe that's what your meant when you said "bike" is a motorcycle. I have a Spyder with 2 large saddlebags (that I would not be able to fasten on a bicycle (which I don't have anyway)).
If you don't drive like a jackrabbit, you get a decent mileage. In the winter, in Wisconsin, my option is still limited, but as soon as good weather comes, I will be using my Spyder for everything (except large lumber).
Hubby loves his big Nissan Titan that barely fits in the garage, but because I don't have a cab separated from the cargo portion, I can haul 14 ft lumber, which he can't.
I had an employee follow me in the parking lot saying :"this, I gotta see". I lowered that passenger window and introduced the lumber that way, with the passenger seat laying down (my back sitting is always down, to max storage). I had the board sticking out of the front a bit, but not illegally.

Easy tip for daily commuting. Leave home 5 minutes early.
If you don't feel rushed and stressed for time, you drive more carefully. Saves a bunch over time. Trying to 'make up time' is what costs gas.

My dad, a car salesman in the 1970s, had a lady come in about her new car. It was over-revving, inefficient and misbehaving. He passed it to the mechannics, who could find nothing wrong. It went back to the lady, who returned with the same complaint. Bit more back and forth. Eventually the mechanic said 'take me for a drive so I can see what's happening'.
He took the passenger seat, she got in the driver's side, pulled the choke out, hung her handbag on it....
(For youngsters unfamiliar with  the choke, it's a device to supply more fuel to the engine when it's cold. You push it in gradually as the engine warms. Nowadays the choke's automatic.)

For Best fuel savings is drive less. (group errands, carpool, and do the farthest spot first then work way back home).  Leave early for errands so you're not rushed and tempted to drive more aggressively.
Remove extra weight from your car (clean out your trunk).  Inflate tires to proper rating to reduce rolling resistance.  Maintain vehicle tune ups, wheel alignment, bearings, brakes ect.   Avoid using the heater use until the engine has reached operating temperature.  Minimize air conditioning use, below 40mph use windows, park in shade use sun shield when parked. dress for the weather.  When driving on a multi-lane roadway, try to maintain a "space cushion" around you, so you can avoid speed variations.  Conserve momentum avoid coming to a complete stop whenever possible.  Be aware of your surroundings, try not to drive in a manner that will annoy those around you, give the impatient drivers an easy opportunity to pass you.  Some will see your atypical driving style and give you a thumbs up, most will be annoyed that you held them up from a very important stop light they rushed up to, only to wait until it changes green, right about the time you gently roll up to the light.

Cuban man fuels car with charcoal!

M Ljin wrote:Cuban man fuels car with charcoal!

I wish they would have provided a more in-depth, technical explanation of how that conversion works.  My first thought was wood gasification, but that doesn't make sense using charcoal.  Charcoal is what you have left AFTER the volatile wood gases have been cooked off.

Any ideas?

Is that an external combustion chamber? I don’t know anything about car mechanics.

Maybe Nancy Reading has a better guess? If she wishes to look at it that is…

I’ll go and look to see if there is a deeper explanation out there.

He said just about any engine can ​be converted to run on charcoal by drawing hot gas instead of gasoline into the carburetor.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/facing-us-oil-blockade-cuban-man-powers-car-with-charcoal-2026-03-19/

During ww1 and ww2, there were a lot of plans and pamphlets published by the uk government on how to convert to wood gas engines.  They used to be in the gutenberg project.   Not sure if they are there anymore.

There was one in the Wartime Farm tv show.

I didn't know it was compatible with engines made after the 1970s.  But i can't remember what technology was that made it more difficult.

The most efficient trips are those that don't need the car! Can you walk or bike for some of your errands? It might take longer but you get exercise in too. If you can't walk TO the errands, maybe there's some that are kinda close that you can walk between instead of driving between. And if your area is crap for walking and cycling and all the strip malls aggressively ticket people who step off the property to go to a
business across the street, you can advocate for change.

Folks have mentioned the right turn over left turn strategy - that would mostly come up when you are going somewhere and making multiple stops, but you can totally group up errands in a way to take advantage. I think it originated from route planning for a delivery company like UPS, and it's more about time than fuel cost. But doing multiple errands on one trip rather than independent trips will typically save at least some fuel so long as they aren't totally opposite directions etc.

r ransom wrote:I remember, the 1980s, every suburban town and satellite city to the metropolis had massive parking lots in the middle of nowhere.  We are talking a thosand or more, cars worth of free parking on discarded or old industrial land.  Absolutely middle of nowhere land.  Some of them were even paved.  
These were called Park and Ride.  

I've been thinking about this for a few days. Some years ago when I used to live in the NY area I would park my car and take a train or a commuter bus when I wanted to go to the city, but over the years the buses were phased out and the train stopped running. There also were specific lanes for cars with multiple occupants, but that didn't last very long, and apparently it's still only a thing in just a few US cities.

I did some research and found that in 1980 20% of Americans carpooled, and that dropped to below 8% in 2022. it's starting to go back up but it's not much higher, and also different after covid and work-at-home/flextime schemes. The people that do carpool seem to be using apps or arrangements set up by their employers, or ride sharing (group uber or blabla car) for commuting. It seems there are apps for sharing longer rides (like I did in college.... i remember a bulletin board looking for riders when I had to drive from college to DC, I needed help paying for gas!!).
It's a shame, I know when we've had gas shortages here the first thing everyone does is talk to coworkers and start sharing rides. Maybe it's a good opportunity for someone to vibe code an app.....

M Ljin wrote:Is that an external combustion chamber? I don’t know anything about car mechanics.

Maybe Nancy Reading has a better guess? If she wishes to look at it that is…

I think it is related to the wood gas burning cars as r ranson says.
I found this:

Some of the smaller stoves fitted to cars burned charcoal. The advantages were that charcoal was lighter than wood, and it was easier to store because it took up less space. However, it was much more sensitive to humidity than wood. Other wood gas systems burned a mixture of charcoal and wood, while a few were powered by anthracite. Burning any of the aforementioned materials produced a flammable syngas that replaced gasoline once it had been properly filtered and cooled.

source

If you burn charcoal (carbon) in a shortage of oxygen, you make carbon monoxide which is a flammable gas. (That was what 'town gas' used to be and quite toxic to animals that breath it as it replaces oxygen in your blood and you suffocate.) I suspect that you would want an old fashioned relatively simple low compression engine if you want it to run for any length of time (and no emissions standards to pass )

edit: We've got a thread about woodgas powered cars (amongst other things) here

r ransom wrote:I didn't know it was compatible with engines made after the 1970s.  But i can't remember what technology was that made it more difficult.

Due long term restrictions on selling to Cuba, one might be surprised how old many of their cars are. They have strong motivations to keep old cars operational, and being an Island, air pollution probably mostly blows away.

When one considers the pollution involved in manufacturing new cars (shipping, mining, ore refining etc.), the amount of pollution caused by running older cars may not be as detrimental as one would think. In LA, USA with its weather patterns and mountains, the human cost would be bad, but in areas where the pollution blows away, it's much harder to compare the pros and cons.

Matthew Nistico wrote:

M Ljin wrote:Cuban man fuels car with charcoal!

I wish they would have provided a more in-depth, technical explanation of how that conversion works.  My first thought was wood gasification, but that doesn't make sense using charcoal.  Charcoal is what you have left AFTER the volatile wood gases have been cooked off.

Any ideas?

It did look rather coal-ish I thought, maybe even sounded coal-ish. But getting the volatiles out still leaves a lot of potential, in the coke.
When I was a kid we were taught about gas works in chemistry, how they made town gas from coke before we went over to fossil methane. Step one is to burn it with air to get it hot, then (step two) limit the air making carbon monoxide - still exothermic. Step 3 send water/steam through, makes hydrogen and CO, and cools the charcoal. I guess a 2-stage process is impractical at the back of the car, so maybe he's feeding air and water simultaneously.

I try to not start my car until it is time to drive. Once I had my car parked in a tight garage. My friend couldn't get to the passenger door. So I pushed it out of the garage. He said he wasn't expecting that. But if I can move something by muscle power it is far more efficient than burning gas. And in that case it didn't take any more time.

When I get in the car, I find a place for whatever I am carrying, sit down and buckle up before I turn the car on. Lots of people start the car first thing, so that it can warm up and they can get their music set up. I think the accessory position is perfect for setting up the stereo and heater.

When I have had access to a garage I always try to use it to store my car, not my other stuff. That saves time in the winter. But it also keeps the car cooler in the summer so I don't have to run the AC as long.

Always let your vehicle run, idle, for a minute or two.  This lubricates all the engine parts properly and this will help you vehicle run better so better mileage.  
I have over a million miles under my belt driving and every mechanic I spoke with agreed with this.

Dennis Barrow wrote:Always let your vehicle run, idle, for a minute or two.  This lubricates all the engine parts properly and this will help you vehicle run better so better mileage.  
I have over a million miles under my belt driving and every mechanic I spoke with agreed with this.

I'm usually starting in an urban location, on the flat, maybe 20mph. So the engines hardly working. I turn the key when I'm ready to go.