Sipping Fuel Feeling Fuelish
The place to find all thingsthat will help you save money by getting better fuel mileage.

For six months now I have been attempting to conserve as much gas as I possibly can, all while commuting ove 100 miles per day.

At first I was quite successful at this. making some large gains and achieving a high of almost 43 MPG. Raising my average MPG to 39 plus.

After about 2 months things leveled off and I was consistently getting 39 to 41 MPG without much effort. or so I thought.

In August I purchased new tires. These tires are far from being LRR or Low Rolling Resistance type of tires. My mileage took a hit because of this although I do not know exactly by how much because of another factor.

In August I started to car pool. Now you might not think this is a bad thing, but my mileage dropped dramatically when I did. Part of the reason is when it is not my turn to drive, I have to make short 5 mile trips to our meeting place. These short trips are not at all optimal for saving gas. Because the engine does not have a chance to warm up to operating temperature it uses more fuel for the entire trip.

A week of short trips like this and my mileage goes to 32-33 MPG. Still not a bad number, but it is not 40 plus, like I have gotten used to.

My driving has also gotten a bit on the sloppy side. Being slightly impatient and passing some cars when before I was fine with just sitting back and not worrying about how long it was going to take me to get to or from work. Actually thinking about it, going home has been more of the problem then going to work.

All of this, especially the hit on MPG’s, has taken a bite out of my enthusiasm. I still want/need to save on gas, but I seem to have “hit the wall” with hypermiling.

This thing called hypermiling is a lot of hard work and takes quite a bit of dedication.

Now I do know that with car pooling we have essentially doubled our mileage in the overall picture of conserving fuel. But in my own micro economy, my wallet and pride have taken a hit.

As always you can find out more about saving gas at SippingFuel.com

The Pickens Plan, at first glance looks to be a reasonable one. I specially like the plan to go towards CNG or compressed natural gas as a way to fuel our cars.

The problem I see is here is that who will take the gamble with this?
Where is the infrastructure? and who will fund it?

Do the auto makers start developing/building CNG vehicles in the hope that there will be fueling stations?
Or do current gas stations start supplying CNG to non-existent vehicles with the hope that the auto makers will start to build them?

Mr Pickens does have some good ideas and lots of money to throw at them, but in my eyes, without the infrastructure in place, I do not see the move to CNG vehicles happening.

Find out more at Sipping Fuel - Saving you money at the pump.