Passat BlueMotion Enters Record Books: Travels 1,527 Miles Without Refueling
October 6th, 2010This is impressive, but you don’t need to own a fancy car to improve mileage by slowing down:
Slow down. Air resistance goes up as the square of velocity. The power consumed to overcome that air resistance goes up as the cube of the velocity. Rolling resistance is the dominant force below about 40 mph. Above that, every mph costs you mileage. Go as slow as traffic and your schedule will allow. Drive under 60-65 since air grows exponentially denser, in the aerodynamic sense, the faster we drive. To be precise, the most efficient speed is your car’s minimum speed in it’s highest gear, since this provides the best “speed per RPM” ratio. This is usually about 45 to 55 miles per hour.
Via: VW PR / Auto Blog Green:
A Volkswagen Passat BlueMotion has set a new Guinness World Record for the longest distance travelled by a standard production passenger car on a single tank of fuel.
The attempt, carried out by a team from The Sunday Times, involved driving from Maidstone in Kent to the South of France and back. The Passat BlueMotion finally ran out of fuel close to Calais after completing a distance of 1,526.63 miles.
The route mainly followed French autoroutes, but included some town driving, resulting in an average speed of just over 45 mph.
Gavin Conway, for The Sunday Times, drove the Passat BlueMotion during the three-day record-breaking trip, accompanied by a navigator and video crew. Two AA patrolmen followed the entire attempt in their van to witness the journey independently for the Guinness World Records organisation, which accredited the record.
Mythbusters did a good show on how following trucks or other vehicles can improve your fuel economy dramatically, and you don’t have to tailgate them to get this benefit. A safe following distance easily saves 10%. There are tons of tips for better MPG ou there. “Hypermilers” have some sites worth a visit.