Want A Car That Does 100+ MPG? Build It Yourself!

I always enjoy the idea of "good gas mileage", but it merely comes back a pipe dream.
This example of a home built car would be fine in superb weather.
But what about rain, sleet or snow?

In my mind, the cars that are good on gas are already here.
It's the people driving them that ruins their economical mileage.
The way I see people driving these days, it's a dangerous game.
Everything is not fast enough and people are always in a hurry.
People can't manage to do the speed limit, let alone drive slower than it.
Herein lies the major problem...the drivers themselves.
If we all just slowed down 5 miles per hour, we'd save $0.30 a gallon.
Highway speeds of course, and that's an estimate.
But no, we gotta shave off a few precious minutes a day speeding along.
Risking a traffic ticket, a blown tire, or just wasting gas.
All of which spends money we just don't seem to have.
Don't get me started on all the garbage they put in cars today.
Extremely unnecessary and distracting as ever.
Just adds more weight that takes aways good mileage.
Now they have to build everything with plastic because the leather seats are heavy.
Ridiculous.

I look at it this way:
If you want to save money on gas, buy a manual transmission, light weight vehicle.
Slow down and coast whenever possible, never mashing the throttle.
I always seem to get an extra 5-10 miles per gallon that way, any car.
(Depending on automatic or standard transmission)

Gas prices are extremely manipulated too.
Anyone else notice the change in price around elections years and years back?
No? Because it didn't happen decades ago. Just recently, because we allow it.
Fluctuation around holidays? Didn't happen before!
Nope. Steady prices usually hovered around the same price for months.
Manipulation at it's finest and we sit back and buy it up.

Supply and demand sets prices?
Then why is it a record high for supply and record low for demand?

Manipulation, folks.
It's all a big game and we ain't invited.

reply to post by havok


Coasting may not be ideal. I can get over 50mpg if I slightly pull off throttle on inclines, and slightly push on it during declines compared to steady level roadway. It's working intelligently with gravity.

If I keep it between 60-70mph and do the above, I can get 50-55mpg for highway trips. If I cruise with traffic at 70-75, then it drops to 30-35 mpg. It all depends on the factors for each individual model on what is the ideal mph vs mpg and time consumed.

I go for mpg when there's little traffic and I'm in no hurry, else cruise and still get good mpg.

Btw, record low for demand I'm calling BS.

Originally posted by moniesisfun
reply to post by havok

 

Coasting may not be ideal.

Neutral coasting at any rate save more gas than higher rpm cruising.
Simple actually.

Btw, record low for demand

I'm calling BS.

Call this BS person all you want.
Here's a few links from this year alone:
WV State Journal May 2012
Mastercard says low demand Feb. 2012

These are from this year and demand tracks by years not days.
You were saying?

reply to post by havok


No dude, not that simple.

You use gravity to your advantage to get back up to speed. I think you need to research hypermiling a bit.

Lower consumption from last year is FAR from "record low" in demand. It's a lie by exaggeration, also know as BS.

One alternative for a high mpg do-it-yourself car would be to build a reverse trike.

Such a project can be done fairly cheap if you find some good deals on craigslist or elsewhere and have some decent fabrication skill. Ideally you would want to find a good used motorcycle to work from with an engine in the 900 or 1000 cc range.







You can expect over 50 miles per gallon on whatever you build. The lighter the vehicle, the better the mileage.

you could do that, or you could buy a (find a way to import if you live in the USA) a VW polo and settle for 60-80 mpg.

files.abovetopsecret.com...

This is data from the VW websites in the UK and USA as of an hour ago.

The USA cars under the fuel eco selection dont come close to touching the polo. Sadly the polo range is no longer sold and when it was the bluemotion eco edition was not.

I've got some time to kill today. Will post a few pics of my fit doing 50+ mpg on a highway trip later. I did this when I first got it and needed to make an ~160 mile round trip off about a 3rd of a tank. There were foothills about half the trip. I just pulled off the pedal a notch on the ascent, bumped it up two notches on the descent, and evened out to ~67mph on the straits.

Here is my average MPG from the last time I set the trip. This is mixed highway and city. Maybe 50/50. I punch it hard in the city, and usually cruise ~75mph on the highway.





This is the trip down the toll road, going 53mph at the slowest at the top of a foothill, and 68mph max at the bottom of another.





To be fair I took pictures of the full trip back home going a faster 65-75mph.



Note the reduced speed. I took these last two directly after coming off the highway while on the feeder about to make a turn.




So you can get 50+ mpg out of a vehicle sold in the US, but I wouldn't recommend trying it in an ecobox unless there's minimal traffic and you're not in any hurry. In the city I could get ~40mpg by nearly punching it to speed, and keeping to the speed limits around here of usually 40mph. I tend to go about 10 over in the city, and this combined with hard accelerations when passing at times puts me more at about 25-27mpg.

*Sidenote* I did this while on my last gallon or so of gas, and with just me in the car at 162lbs. Doing this on a full tank would add an addition 90lbs or so.