Rollin, rollin, rollin on the road with a lower resistance while retaining a high coefficient of frictionnn...

OK, so it's no Proud Mary, but this is a blog, not a song writing session and I'm not paid to write either, so deal with it!


On to business! In two of my previous posts (stupid car, and kill-a-watt) I wrote about my constant attention to gas mileage and how I track it. Well, I was refueling my car this evening on my way home from work when, as I always do, I checked my gas mileage with my odometer and compared it to the car's computer because, strangely enough, they do not always reflect the same miles per gallon value.

In this case, the mileage between the two was spot-on with both coming to what you see here (51.3 mpg).  For those that own Prius's, you know that your fuel economy can be impacted by many things like (especially) the outdoor temperature, the way you drive, hills, how much you use the air conditioner, and even wet roads.  Because of the ridiculous, recent heat, my fuel economy has been down around 48 mpg and while I've run the AC a bit less over the last week or so, that would not completely account for the rise in fuel economy I was able to realize. Mystery, right?!?
  
Not exactly.  What I didn't tell you is that I've got an interesting (at least to me) little experiment going right now that seems to be working out well and it's one that might help all of you save some coin.  Even more so if you DO NOT drive a hybrid, have a low mpg rated vehicle and drive alot.


My car was recently up for inspection and emissions and unfortunately my car was sporting tires that I knew were beyond their useful life. So, I did a little research to see what was out there and what I could drone on about on this blog. Good news!  I found some and made sure that I knew what I was buying before the dealer called me and told me that I needed new tires and had to buy whatever brand hey had on hand or my car wouldn't pass inspection.  I have to say, though, my local Toyota Dealership worked hard to bring the tires in quickly from their warehouse and I would like to specifically thank Joe Bechtel from New Holland Auto Group for his help in making this happen quickly and the great customer service!


I first learned about "low rolling resistance tires" a few years back and decided to look into them a bit further.  In complete honesty, I thought the concept of your tires saving you fuel was complete marketing crap, but hey, I've been surprised by much lesser things.  As usual, my research lead me to Consumer Reports as it does for pretty much anything I buy these days and it turns out these things are for real.


Actually, according to Consumer Reports these tires can not only save you money, but actually perform better, over time, than traditional tires, all at little to no cost premium and no compromise in safety.  Seems like a great deal, right?  Well we'll see, and I will let you all know how it goes as the experiment has just started.  


For the record, I went with the Continental ProContact (TM) with EcoPlus Technology (Sounds fancy!) tires (shown above), which have an 80,000 mile warranty and I was able to pick up for $96/tire plus installation. Doing the math, if you drive 15,000 miles/year and the tires improve your fuel economy from 30 to 32 miles per gallon, you would save $109/year if gas is at $3.50/gallon.  That allows the tires to pay for themselves in less than 4 years or 60,000 miles, which is less than the tire warranty. Tires that pay you?!? But only if you rotate them regularly.

One other quick detail I wanted to mention that was completely overlooked this past week during all of the adult daycare, debt ceiling BS.  An agreement was made to raise corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Considering that current standards for cars is at 27.5 mpg and that I just saw that the Chevy Volt can achieve up to 270 miles per gallon, I think this is a huge opportunity for the American car companies to innovate, rise from the ashes, and return to dominance.  That would be good for all of us for a number of reasons!


Happy motoring!

Starting Off Slow… How to Kill-A-Watt

First things first! You’ve probably heard the old adage, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Well, when it comes to energy use, that couldn’t be more true. Especially when considering electricity because it isn’t something that you can see or feel unless something has gone terribly wrong!

My favorite example of this is what can be referred to as the “Prius Effect.”  This may come as a shock to everyone, but I drive a Toyota Prius. You know, one of those bubble looking things that runs partly on electric, partly on gasoline and sometimes both at the same time. Often seen sporting a “Coexist,” “Buy Fresh Buy Local,” and/or a “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” bumper sticker.  Well, the Prius has this cool little feature that allows you to see your real-time gas mileage as you drive (see below).  It turns out that when you present a person with real time consumption data, they have a tendency to change their consumption habits for the better.  This screen shows you how breaking and use of the throttle can dramatically impact your fuel economy.  It’s like a video game where every time you drive your car, you’re trying to achieve a new high score.

 

This data/behavior relationship is also true for your home.  However, If you’re like most people (my electric company pays me, but more to come on that), you probably receive a bill from your electricity provider every month with some mysterious dollar amount that they claim you owe them. You might have some idea where all that cost is coming from, but mostly it’s a guess.  If you had a way of telling where electricity was being used, you might be able to intelligently impact that number and keep some of your money.

Well, good news! There are now many devices on the market at various price ranges that allow you to see where you’re spending money and some even tell you what you can do about it. 

The first and least expensive is one of my personal favorites.  It’s the Kill-A-Watt EZ from P3 International and can be purchase from your local Home Depot or similar store for less than $30.

The Kill-A-Watt EZ can simply be plugged into an outlet near an electronic device.  Once plugged in, you can enter what you pay per kilowatt hour (which you can find on you electric bill) and plug the device you would like to measure into the Kill-A-Watt.  Use the device you’ve connected to the Kill-A-Watt and it will tell you what that device costs you in the way of electricity use on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.  The longer you use the Kill-A-Watt with the device you are measuring, the more reliable the cost/consumption data.

Here’s a nice video on how it works.

http://youtu.be/9-EA3Zhgy9c

If you’re looking to start with some big consumption items to measure with the Kill-A-Watt, try your refrigerator as they are one of the largest energy hogs in most homes especially if your refrigerator is not EnergyStar rated.  In fact, if you have an older refrigerator, which is the beer fridge in a lot of homes, it’s probably costing you  at least $100/year over what an EnergyStar qualified refrigerator would, which makes for some expensive beer!  Check out USEPA’s EnergyStar information on refrigerators for more information. You can even plug in information about your refrigerator on their site and it will tell you how much it’s costing you.

That’s it for now. Next time, more on whole house energy monitors like the Powerhouse Dynamics Emonitor, which I have installed in my home, as well as information on phantom power.