Seven Million Miles and $882,000 Dollars Later…
Our little eco-driving community here at FuelClinic.com continues to grow.
Today we crossed the seven-million-mile mark of real-world fuel data based from members of our free non-commercial version of the site. There have been over 31,000 receipts entered into our database, documenting the real-world fuel efficiency of nearly 4,000 vehicles. We have been averaging ~500 new receipts a week for the past few months.
As a group we’ve purchased over 310,000 gallons of fuel (US gallon equivalent) spending over $882,000 (US dollar equivalent) last year. At the same time – as a group – we’ve managed to IMPROVE our MPG a modest 5.38% – saving over $47,000 simply by tracking our fuel mileage and (hopefully) taking advantage of the efficient driving tips.
My goals for 2010 include providing better, more compelling online training materials that will help us bring that 5.38% efficiency improvement up closer to 10% or more. I will be looking for help, using my new connections through the fantastic UCF Business Incubator Program to find talented people that can help me pull this off.
The FuelClinic Dashboard will start looking a little different in the next few weeks as I slowly roll out some template changes. The tools will remain familiar and simple to use, but room will be added to provide driving tips directly in the dashboard, as well as other important information now spread around and hidden in the blog (unless you are searching for it) like our free reminder magnet offer.
Shortly we will begin creating “eco-driver communities” that you can choose to join – so you can track your progress along with others in your same community, and challenge other communities to improve their fuel efficiency for some good natured competition.
I’ll be adding a document library. Over the years I have amassed a large collection of studies, reports, documents, press clippings, and other materials that will be added to the members area – behind that “Research Area” link at the top that has remained inactive too long. There will also be simple report tools you can use to “dig” into aggregate data in the FuelClinic database, looking for trends related to site usage, community totals and standings, and other goodies.
Members will also have to option to sign-up for bi-weekly “performance reports” that will be emailed to you automatically once every two weeks, covering your stats for the last two weeks, grading your progress, and providing additional tips for improving your fuel mileage.
There are always “more plans” for this platform, but they’ll remain “in the bag” for now. I appreciate the time each of you has taken to manually input your fuel receipts to build this data set.
- Michael
Shea Holbrook to Make Rookie World Challenge Run in 2010
GROVELAND, Fla. (Feb. 4, 2010) – Shea Racing, LLC. is proud to announce its participation in the World Challenge season opener, March 26-28, at St Petersburg, Fla. Team owner and driver Shea Holbrook, 19, of Groveland, Fla., will strap-in and make her debut professional road race in the World Challenge Touring Car (TC) class. According to series archives, Shea is one of the youngest female drivers to take the grid in World Challenge history.
Holbrook is a competitor thru-and-thru. Formerly a state-, regional- and nationally- ranked water-skier, she is no stranger to the thrill of speed or danger. A few years ago, Holbrook traded in the water skies for the smell of race fuel and burnt rubber.”It’s an awesome experience go over a jump at 50-plus mph to hurl yourself hundreds of feet thru the air, but it just doesn”t compare to going into turn 17 at Sebring at 100-plus mph,” Holbrook said.
Holbrook is currently a college student studying Broadcasting and wants to make motorsports a career.
“This being my first professional race, I have two goals,” Holbrook added. “First, to bring the car home in one piece and second, for all those veteran drivers out there that read this, regardless of where I finish, I plan on giving you all the respect that you deserve and I’m thankful for having the opportunity.”
There are many people in the motorsports world that have greatly enriched Holbrook’s life. People like John Doonan (Mazda Motorsports), George Ayres http://www.greenerspeed.com , Skip Baber Racing, Lyn St James http://www.lynstjames.com and Marcus Haselgrove http://autohausmotorsports.com, to mention a few, “thank you all for your friendship, wisdom and continued support.”
Currently Shea Racing’s primary sponsor is MD&F (Mom, Dad & Friends) but we are diligently trying to change this. We do have very creative marketing plan for interested companies that actually requires no upfront capital, so if you’re interested in finding out the details please contact www.SheaRacing.com .
We would like to thank World Challenge and SCCA Pro Racing for the opportunity and look forward to a great season. See you on the grid!
Learn more about Shea Racing at her website or on her Facebook Group Page.
BREAKING: Tesla Motors Files S-1 Registration Statement for proposed IPO
Tesla Motors has filed the S-1 Registration Statement with the SEC for a proposed public offering of it’s common stock – the first such IPO from an American auto manufacturer since Ford went public in 1956.
While the filing is an exciting sign of growth at Tesla, there’s a bit of bad news buried in the paperwork for Roadster fans… apparently the current Roadster we’ve all come to love will not be built after 2011… possibly to be replaced with a new Roadster after Lotus re-tools their plant in England.
The Model S coupe is expected sometime in 2012.
From AutoBlogGreen:
For the first time in more than fifty years, a U.S. automaker is holding a public offering. Henry Ford made shares of Ford Motor Company public back in 1956. Tesla, the Elon Musk-owned Silicon Valley electric car company, filed to do so today. There’s no word as to when the shares will be available for public consumption, nor any word as to how much each share will cost…
The press release from Tesla Motors starts…
PALO ALTO, CA. – Tesla Motors, Inc. today announced that it has filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of its common stock. Tesla Motors designs, manufactures and sells high-performance fully electric vehicles and advanced electric vehicle powertrain components. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined…
But Wired Autopia Blog finds some discouraging news in the IPO filings, Tesla Motors say they’ll stop building their popular Roadster sometime in 2011. Here’s why:
Wired’s Autopia was digging through the papers filed by Tesla to the Securities and Exchange Commission for its IPO and came across with this nugget:
“We do not plan to sell our current generation Tesla Roadster after 2011 due to planned tooling changes at a supplier for the Tesla Roadster.”
As everyone’s aware, the current iteration of the Tesla Roadster is built in Hethel, England by Lotus using Elise/Exige underpinnings. Judging by the quote above, that means the Elise/Exige is due to be replaced by a new model (good news for enthusiasts), but that leaves Tesla up a creek without the proverbial paddle.
The other telling line is this:
“As a result, we anticipate that we may generate limited, if any, revenue from selling electric vehicles after 2011 until the launch of the planned model S…”
Exciting days ahead for the EV enthusiasts for sure.
VIDEO: Eco-Driving Techniques
In Europe, eco-driving is fairly popular as a means to save money and reduce emissions. Fuel costs are much higher than here in the US – fuel is heavily taxed and the per-gallon cost equivalent is $6 to $8 per gallon.
In Europe fuel is usually sold by the Liter and the standard of fuel economy is “Liters per 100 kilometers”, or “L/100km”. It’s an opposite system from of our MPG rating – where a higher MPG (“more miles per gallon”) is better, in Europe the opposite is true – the fewer liters per 100 kilometers (“L/100KM”) the better… so the lower the fuel economy rating you’ll hear in this video, the better.
The EU has decided to partner with Europia, an energy-giant in the EU, to continue to make motorists aware of the benefits of using eco-driving techniques.
We invite all motorists to start using FuelClinic.com to track their mileage using our easy online tools. FuelClinic is built to accommodate a variety of standards of measure, including MPG and L/100km, and a variety of currencies and other local preferences.
FLASH: #55 FuelClinic.com Camaro invited to race in “24 Minutes of Daytona” this weekend
Today I recieved a call from an excited race car team owner Mike Kern, “We’ve been invited to race in the Rolex 24 Heritage Exhibition (aka “The 24 Minutes of Daytona”)… and I need you to help me prep the car…”
The Camaro was on display at the Grassroots Motorsports Magazine tent area, as planned, but race organizers found Mike today and told him that he had been invited to race – but the email went to his previous job’s email account… so he didn’t know until today.
Mike and Kurt scrambled back to the shop to get all the fixings needed to get the Camaro prepped for the race, file the required paperwork, and get ready to move the car to the paddock tomorrow for race prep.
Race updates all weekend will be thru the FuelClinic Facebook Fan Page – become a fan of our page and stay updated to the happenings this weekend.
Gas Prices Steadily Climb Again – What Have We Done To Stop It?
Take a look at this graph of average gas prices courtesy of GasBuddy.com and you’ll see that prices continue to rebound from the “crash” of 2008… which shouldn’t be a shock to anyone.
Not much has changed as far as our “oil addiction” since the “crash”. Looking back, it seems that Cash for Clunkers was the only national attempt at dealing with oil’s monopoly since the collapse, and the merits of that program as an energy policy are laughable.
It took a global economic collapse to undercut the oil gouging, something we can not afford to repeat. (I continue to assert that the uncertainty of affordable fuels contributed to the economic tsunami that brought world markets to their knees that summer.)
What are we going to do to shift oil from a strategic political and economic weapon to just “another” commodity that must compete with alternative sources?
1. I’ve long been a proponent of Flex-Fuel vehicles, since they offer the simple option to use purely petroleum based gasoline or alternative alcohol-blended (up to 85%) gasoline replacement fuels. Manufacturers “promised” to add Flex-Fuel capabilities into much of their fleets by 2010, yet most only add the systems to the most inefficient models, taking “credit” for making their fleet more efficient instead. Having Flex-Fuel vehicles on the road in great numbers will be an incentive for stations to carry more alcohol-blends, and at the same time allow motorists to travel far and wide without worry that they won’t find a filling station specific to their vehicle while the network of supply is created by the opportunity to serve this demand.
2. Small efficient diesel engines are hot sellers in Europe – 50% of all new car sales across the pond are diesels. Why? Because they are clean, quiet, powerful, last a long time, and get upwards of 65 to 80 MPG every day of the week. Plus you can fuel them with bio-diesel, and reduce the amount of petroleum based diesel fuel. Again, you can travel far and wide, taking advantage of bio-diesel when available – an incentive for stations to carry the product. Since bio-diesel is made closer to home, distribution is cheaper, jobs are created locally, and competition controls costs.
3. Hybrids are great technology for getting slightly better mileage from a gallon of gas – but they are all still 100% petroleum-dependent. Flex-Fuel Electric or Diesel Electric hybrids would allow motorists to offset even more of their oil addiction to alternatives, not just kick the can down the road a little further.
4. 100% electric vehicles are still not a replacement for the family car in most cases. High costs, limited range, and long recharging times limit options and create a situation where drivers must change habits (and hardware) to participate. Plus there is the battery problem, making exotic metal ore addiction the replacement for oil addiction.
5. Conservation (aka: eco-driving) is first-aid remedy immediately available for free (better than free when you consider the money savings) available to everyone right now. With modest changes to your driving habits, you can increase your fuel mileage 5% to over 25% no matter what you prefer to drive (including Hummers and Hybrids). And while “ecodriving” sounds like “hypermiling” to some people, in fact eco-driving is easy, courteous, and safer driving. It does require you to pay attention to operating your car (shouldn’t you be?), but relieves you from the urge to compete against those other drivers around you, and instead compete against the gas pump.
In the end, as we approach the future still addicted to oil we limit our geopolitical power and remain at the mercy of markets we do not have much control over politically. We have been at war for years thanks to oil, with no end in sight. While our planets poorest nations are prime real-estate for several bio-fuel industries that could lead them from poverty to prosperity, the “powers that be” lobby and maneuver to protect their monopoly on your mobility.
What are you doing to make progress? What do you see as our future?
Configuring CarChip Pro for Hybrid Vehicles
I had a chance to test-drive the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid over the weekend. I connected one of our CarChip Pro data loggers to it to gather real-time data on speed, throttle position, engine load, and mass air flow. Unfortunately the CarChip Pro was not working properly with the Hybrid vehicle, and a quick inquiry to Davis Instruments revealed why, it needed to be configured specifically for a hybrid – or “Anomalous Vehicle” (something I was not aware of).
Here are the instructions for configuring a CarChip Pro for both the Toyota Prius, and the Ford Fusion Hybrid…
In the past we had issues with hybrids in general. However, we put a fix into the software that should allow the CarChip to work with Hybrids.
Below are directions on how to get the CC to work on hybrids. These were written for a Toyota, but it is the same for Ford, other than clicking on the Ford Hybrid option.
Because the Prius [and 2010Ford Fusion Hybrid] is a hybrid vehicle we must take special steps to configure the CarChip.
Open up the CarChip software with the CarChip device connected to the PC.
Go to the CarChip menu and choose “Set Anomalous Vehicle”. See Figure 1.
Following that select “Specific Exceptions”, then “Toyota Hybrid” then click “OK”. See Figure 2.
I’ll re-configure the CarChip Pro and test again the next time I get the chance. I’d like to hear from any existing CarChip Pro users who are using the device with a Hybrid. What has your experience been?
Transformational Trucks: Determining the Energy Efficiency Limits of a Class-8 Tractor Trailer
Rocky Mountain Institute: White Paper
Feasible technological improvements in vehicle ef?ciency, combined with “long combination vehicles” (which raise productivity by connecting multiple trailers), can potentially raise the ton-mile ef?ciency of long-haul heavy tractor-trailers by a factor ~2.5 with respect to a baseline of 130 ton-miles/gal. Within existing technological and logistical constraints, these innovations (which do not include such further opportunities as hybrid-electric powertrains or auxiliary power units to displace idling) could thus cut the average fuel used to move each ton of freight by ~64 percent. This would annually save the current U.S. Class 8 ?eet about four billion gallons of diesel fuel and 45 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. Further bene?ts would include lower shipping costs, bigger pro?ts for trucking companies, fewer tractor-trailers on the road, and fewer fatal accidents involving them. Thus transformational, not incremental, redesign of tractors, trailers, and (especially) both as in integrated system can broadly bene?t economic prosperity, public health, energy security, and environmental quality.
Oprah Show: Distracted Driving – America’s New Deadly Obsession
Oprah Winfrey is using her considerable influence to educate motorists to the growing dangers of distracted driving, a topic near to our hearts here at FuelClinic.
Millions of people text, talk or e-mail on their cell phones while driving—a recent survey finds that 71 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 49 admit they text or talk on the phone while they drive.
If you think you can call, text and drive at the same time, you cannot. That message you can’t wait to send could kill. Distracted driving is an epidemic that is sweeping through our country, claiming lives and destroying families.
On Monday, she aired an entire episode dedicated to her new cause. While you can’t find the full episode online, here is a short clip available at CNN.
We applaud Oprah along with the many professional driving educators, technology creators, and others working every day to make positive changes in this important effort.
Dublin City Council is asking all drivers to reduce their carbon footprint by three per cent.
About the Eco-Friendly Driving Campaign
Dublin City Council, in partnership with Codema, Dublin’s sustainable energy agency, is asking all drivers to reduce their carbon footprint by three per cent. This eco-friendly driving campaign is part of the MINUS 3% project, which aims to reduce Dublin City Council’s energy use by 33 per cent by 2020.
Dublin City Council has more than 900 vehicles on the streets of Dublin every day. Nearly all of these vehicles are diesel engines that are serviced regularly to keep them in tip-top condition. While all of these vehicles are needed to do the work of the Council, they create a lot of carbon emissions. However, good driving habits that incorporate smooth and safe driving techniques help to reduce these emissions while also delivering benefits in terms of road safety and savings in fuel consumption.
With the help of our professional drivers, adopting more eco-friendly driving habits will save 280 tonnes of carbon dioxide. This is the equivalent to 74,000 litres of fuel or €90,000, based on current fuel prices.
Dublin City Council is also running Occupational Driving Training Courses for all our drivers which include the principles of eco-friendly driving. This part of the course passes on tips to our drivers as to how to use their vehicles as efficiently as possible and we know that we can depend on our drivers to achieve the target of a 3 per cent reduction in our carbon footprint. You may also have noticed the eco-driving posters in your depots to further reinforce the messages of this campaign.
I’ve encouraged the Dublin City Council to utilize our free FuelClinic.com software presently available online to help them measure the success with this program.
Announcing: FuelClinic.com membership in Stuttgart’s “Cities for Mobility”
Today we are very pleased to announce FuelClinic.com membership in the Cities for Mobility network, created and coordinated by the city of Stuttgart, Germany to promote sustainable and efficient transport systems in the member cities.
“Cities for Mobility” is a global network on all questions regarding urban mobility. The network is coordinated by the City of Stuttgart and promotes transnational cooperation between local governments, transportation companies, businesses, science and the civil society, with the aim of supporting the development of sustainable and efficient transport systems in the member cities.
“We want to warmly welcome FuelClinic.com as new member in the world wide network Cities for Mobility. The Coordination Office is more than delighted by your decision to join our network and we look forward to a fruitful cooperation with [you]“, wrote Isabelle Kübler from the office of Coordinator Network Cities for Mobility.
FuelClinic.com will provide member cities the ability to invigorate and measure their eco-driving and driver behavior improvement programs with free web-based eco-driving training materials, a voluntary web-based driver-efficiency analysis and reporting system, and increasing levels of technology support for promoting and measuring eco-driving behavior within their cities and communities.
FuelClinic.com was nominated for membership in this network by existing member Projeto Melhorar, a Brazilian-based initiative to create sustainable transportation systems in South America’s largest country.
Fuelishness! Feed: Test Drive Taurus SHO w/ EcoBoost; Bioethanol Volvo Wins; Hybrids Offset Little Oil; How Much Is That Hybrid In The Window?
- Test-drive: 2010 Ford Taurus SHO w/ EcoBoost – The EcoBoost V6 readily delivers on Ford’s claim that it produces V8-levels of power, and it also does it with V8 linearity. Torque reaches peak at a very low 1500rpm and rides a plateau all the way to 5250rpm, thanks to the diminutive size of the Honeywell GT15 turbos which max out at 12 pounds boost, and the high 10.0:1 compression ratio that’s only possible because of the direct injection. In other words, there really is no turbo lag whatsoever. (This ain’t your Momma’s Taurus!)
. - Bioethanol Powered Volvo Posts Wins at Swedish Touring Car Championship – The Swedish Touring Car Championship is the first production car championship race to allow the use of bioethanol or E85. With the use of the alternative fuel, Volvo’s race cars produces 80 percent less carbon dioxide emissions compared to gasoline-powered vehicles participating in the championship.
. - Study: Hybrid Cars Won’t Save Much Oil – In a report, the analysts point out that even under high-growth assumptions, where hybrids account for a third of all new car sales in 2020, the savings would be just 200,000 barrels of oil a day, or just 1 percent of the nation’s current oil demand.
. - Detroit needs a buyer for its efficiency drive – Research from Walter McManus, director of the Automotive Analysis Division of the University of Michigan, suggests the big three carmakers — GM, Ford and Chrysler — could boost their gross profits by $3 billion (£1.8 billion) a year and increase sales by the equivalent of two assembly plants by embracing new government standards on fuel economy.
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