Personally, I drive quite fast but with good fuel efficiency. Thinking ahead and avoiding unneccessary maneuvres helps a lot.
City driving is the least efficient situation, since you use energy accellerating and lose it again by braking. Therefore, it is important to keep the car as light as possible. A heavy toolkit or heavy steel wheels will be noticeable. One important point to keep in mind is that if you are slow to react when a light turns green, all the other cars will spend more time idling.
Over-inflation (within limits) will improve everything except comfort. Michelin makes tires designed for efficiency now, with a rubber compound that has less inner friction without reducing grip.
Combining them with light alloy wheels will be expensive, but good for the environment.
Saab did a study some years back, and found the most efficient accelleration scheme to be 1-3-5, that is to skip the even-numbered gears. |
