Frugally Green » fuel efficiency

Cash in on the Cash for Clunkers Program

Tyler — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:00:56 +0000

Three weeks ago, President Obama signed into law the Cash for Clunkers Program that has been working its way through Congress over the last several months. The gist of the program: trade in your old gas-guzzler for a shiny, new efficient automobile and get an instant rebate from the government to the tune of $4,500. Cash for Clunkers is being billed as a win for consumers who want to trade in an old, inefficient vehicle, the auto industry which will see a boost to their sales numbers, and for society at large who will benefit by an increase to the average fuel economy of our nation’s auto fleet, reducing CO2 emissions and our dependence on foreign oil. How could we go wrong?

My little, old Ford Ranger still putters along just fine, but I’m afraid it likely won’t last too much longer. I’ve implemented all the hypermiling tricks I can, but I still worry that it might be on its way out. With dollar signs in my eyes, a-researching I went to see if there is any feasible way that I could benefit from this program. Here’s what I uncovered about the program:

Does my current car qualify?

There are few hoops Ol’ Bessy’ll have to jump through before you’re riding the rebate train to motor city. These are the most important ones you should know about:

Your car needs to be less than 25 years old. If your auto was manufactured before 1984, you can’t feed at this government trough. I can’t say that I understand this requirement. If we’re aiming to improve efficiency, shouldn’t we accept any inefficient car still running, regardless of age? Either way, the Ranger qualifies here.
Qualifying autos must get 18 mpg or less. If you were responsible to begin with and bought a more efficient vehicle, it will not qualify for this program. This number is based on the new EPA ratings found here. The midle number in red is what you’re looking for. The Ranger qualifies here as well at exactly 18 mpg.
You can’t go buy a clunker and trade it in. When you show up at the dealership, you must provide proof that your car has been continuously owned, registered, and insured in your name for the last year. This is where poor, ol’ Ranger falls out of eligibility. I have owned, operated, and insured my truck for some time now, but my dad originally bought it when I was 18. The title is still in his name. A technicality, but I doubt any exceptions will be made for such circumstances in a federal program.

What new cars qualify?

If your current vehicle qualifies, you can move on to the next step of figuring out what new cars you can buy and still qualify for the incentive. These are the most notable rules:

The MSRP must be less than $45,000. This figure seems just high enough to allow you to buy most of the latest and greatest efficiency technology, but bars you from trading up to some ridiculous luxury auto. Fair enough, I guess.
It must be brand spankin’ new. You cannot trade your clunker in for any kind of used automobile and qualify for this program. We’re trying to spur consumerism and save our beloved auto-makers here, people! I don’t like this rule. I think we’re sending the wrong message by implying that we can only support the economy by buying something new. I would like to see a program like this cover late model, used vehicles that meet all the other critera.
Your new car’s rating must be at least 4 mpg better. But consider that 4 mpg will only get you an allowance of $3,500. To receive the full $4,500 rebate you must improve your milage by 10 mpg. This only applies to passenger cars, though. The chart below demonstrates the fuel economy requirements for different types of vehicles.

The various fuel economy requirements for different types of new vehicles

What should I know if I’m going to take advantage of this?

There are a few more things you should know about the Cash for Clunkers Program if you’ve decided that you need a new car and will be eligible to participate.

Rebates won’t take effect until late July. All the final details of how this program is going to work are still being figured out. Currently, the scheduled date for implementation is “sometime next week.”
They won’t last long. The language of the program states that there will be $1 billion to fund these rebates and the program will expire in October or when the program runs out of money, whichever comes first. Current estimates expect the money to last only through August. However, my skeptical mind tells me this might just be hype to get people to act fast. The economy is still in really bad shape, unfortunately.
You won’t get full trade in value for your current car. Since the rules of the Cash for Clunkers program states that all cars collected must be scrapped, you will likely only be able to recieve the scrap value for your trade-in. So, if your current car qualifies, but is still worth more than the rebate you’ll get, it would make little financial sense to take it.

Should I participate?

I don’t know. How’s that for an answer? Everybody is different. Weigh your options and your actual needs and do what’s best for you. On a more general note, a program like this brings up some mixed feelings for me. I ask myself questions like:

Is this really a good way to improve our nation’s fuel economy? The cars taken off the road by this program will be scrapped and you can only trade-in for a new vehicle. Something just feels irresponsible about throwing out something that still works (trade-ins must be in drivable condition) and only rewarding those that purchase something new.
Are we really gaining that much? It seems like the program’s mpg improvement rules are a bit lax. I understand that there were a lot of complex issues to address when deciding to implement a program like this and probably a lot of political trade-offs to make it happen, but how much good are we really doing ourselves by giving $3,500 to someone who only improves their gas mileage by 2 mpg (minimum requirement for a light duty truck)

I’m not saying that this was the right or wrong thing for Congress to do, but these kinds of questions weigh heavily on my mind when I think about what we’re really getting for our money. For all the current rules of the program and a (somewhat) comprehensive list of FAQs, check out the official website at cars.gov.

What do you think? Is this going to help us out of our recession? Is it going to improve the efficiency of our nation’s auto fleet? Are you going to take advantage of the program? What will you trade in?

Save $550 a Year by Hypermiling

Tyler — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:00:32 +0000

Last summer was a huge wake up call for millions of Americans. Gas prices soared to record highs and many families found themselves involuntarily reducing their travel or, worse, having to choose between buying gas or other necessities like groceries. Now, this all-encompassing global recession has gone a long way to reset gas prices to more reasonable levels, but using that as an excuse to ignore our mega-dependence on fossil fuel would be awfully short sighted given such an opportunity to improve. As self-proclaimed frugalites and stewards of our environment, we owe it to ourselves and those around us to continually find ways to lead more sustainable lives. Sometimes, implementing changes in our lives to achieve this can be difficult, but sometimes it can be easy. Saving gas (and consequently money) is easy. Let’s find out how.

After spending the previous 8 years driving without a care in the world, I found myself with less and less expendable income as I faced higher and higher prices at the pump. I finally got sick of it and decided to pick up a new hobby – hypermiling – increasing fuel efficiency through improved driving habits. Anyone can do it in any automobile, it’s free, and there are tons of tricks out there to squeeze every last inch out of every drop of gas. There are even whole web-communities dedicated to hypermiling, like CleanMPG. I picked a few specific items to focus on and managed to increase the fuel economy of my trusty old Ford Ranger from a paltry 17 mpg to a still paltry, yet more respectable, 24 mpg – a 7 mpg increase! At today’s fuel price ($2.75 at the station down the street) that works out to a savings of $46 a month for the average driver traveling 1000 miles per month. Extend that out 12 months and I’m looking at saving $550 and 4,000 pounds of CO2 emissions every year. Would you make a few easy changes to your habits if it meant saving $550 a year? Here’s what I do (in order of importance):

Slow down: Cruising down the freeway at 75 mph is a lot more fun than at 55, but chilling out and slowing down a bit will net you the biggest gains in fuel economy. Many cars are the most efficient between 45 & 55 mph.

Accelerate slowly: Replace that lead foot with an aluminum one! Foot 2.0. Lighter! Stronger! Smarter! Make it a point to accelerate slowly from a stop instead of blasting off the line like you’re going for a new quarter mile record. If you have a manual transmission, pay attention to the RPMs when shifting as you’re accelerating. I like to shift around 2,250 RPM. That may seem low to most drivers, but I have discovered it’s optimum for my Ranger. Your car may be slightly different. If you drive an automatic vehicle, simply focus on depressing the accelerator slower.

Coast to stops: Rather than maintaining speed up to a stop light and then slamming on your brakes like most drivers seem to do, try to anticipate how much momentum you need to come to a stop without using any pedals. The easiest way to do it is usually just to take your foot off the gas as soon as you see the light ahead of you turn yellow. If you’re too close, you’ll have to use your brakes anyway. If you’re too far away, you’ll realize you’re not going to make it and have to accelerate a little. You’ll almost never get it perfect, but just trying will improve your fuel efficiency. When I lived in downtown Portland, I used this strategy to figure out that if I cruised at a consistent 15 mph, I could get all the way across town without ever using my brakes.

Use cruise control: When using cruise control on long trips it becomes obvious very quickly how bad people are at moderating their speed. Get in the right hand lane, set your speed for 55 mph and let it do all the work.

Turn off your car in the drive-thru: You can do this at long stop lights too, but pay attention. If you’re motor is off and the light turns green, you might find yourself wasting gas trying to accelerate too quickly to compensate. The general rule is that if you anticipate being stopped for longer than 10 seconds, turn your engine off. This tip gets debated incessantly. People argue whether you actually save gas (it’s been proven you do) and whether you wear out your starter, alternator, and engine faster by turning on and off more frequently. I won’t tell you to use this tip as I cannot vouch for the possible extra wear on your engine, but I will say that once I started doing this, I did notice a reasonable, sustained bump in my average fuel economy (just under 1 mpg). If you’re not comfortable doing this in traffic and you don’t spend any time waiting in drive-thru lines, you won’t get much out of this one.

So there you have it, 5 extremely simple behavior changes that I made to increase my fuel economy by 7 mpg and save $550 a year. Of course, everyone is different and so is every car. You may not achieve the exact same results that I did, but if you make a conscious effort to change your behavior, I highly doubt you will be disappointed no matter what vehicle you drive. You might do better than me! And don’t forget that these tips become more and more lucrative as gas prices go up. They’re relatively low right now, but there’s no doubt that they are headed up in the long term. If gas goes back to $4.50 a gallon like it did last summer, my savings increases to $912 per year.

The projected savings for my Ranger increases substantially as the price of gas climbs.

In order to track your progress you’ll need to regularly calculate your fuel efficiency. You can easily do this the caveman way by dividing total miles traveled by the number of gallons replenished at each fill up (you’ll always need to fill up all the way for this to work), or you can join me on this cool new website, Fuelly.com and input the data from your receipt after each fill-up and Fuelly will make lots of pretty tables and graphs about your fuel consumption for you to be amazed by. Honestly, it is a neat website. If you decide to sign up, add me as a friend (username: CombatWombat) and we can follow each other’s progress.

Don’t stop here! There are so many more gas saving tips out there that you can use to improve your mileage. Roll down your windows and turn off your A/C. Unload heavy objects that you don’t need. Plan your trips better. The list goes on and on. Spend some time on the CleanMPG site that I mentioned earlier if you want to become a hypermiling nutjob (that’s a compliment where I come from).

Do you practice hypermiling? Can you offer any other “high value” tips? What goals could you accomplish with an extra $500 or more a year? Share your hypermiling story if you have one!