Fuel Efficiency: Mythbusters Style
Mythbusters has been running for most part of the decade, and they have already broken thousands of myths, suggested by fans and other rumors circulating the World Wide Web. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman started Mythbusters until the troika of Kari Byron, Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci became part of the team. With gas prices not dipping anytime soon, they launched a series of myths on how to make your car fuel efficient.
On their second season, they debated whether turning on the air conditioning inside a car would be more fuel efficient than lowering the windows when traveling. At a glance, both situations are not ideal in giving you sufficient fuel efficiency. By just turning the A/C on, it affects your fuel economy by at least 10%, on the other hand, rolling down your windows creates drag inside your vehicle thus dwindles a vehicles’ fuel economy. Ironically the only way to avoid drag is to increase your speed and in doing so you are dragging down your fuel economy further. The Mythbusters team tested this myth by running a vehicle in to two separate speeds, 89kph and 72 kph. In both speeds, the vehicle was required to turn the A/C on and to lower the windows down. Results have shown that it’s more fuel efficient to travel with your windows down in lower speeds and turning the A/C on when traveling faster. Fast forward to their third season, the issue of having a pick-up truck’s tailgate down than it is up is said to be more fuel efficient. In fact, it is better to close your tailgate rather than putting it down because it allows drag to circulate at the back of your vehicle while putting it up creates this vortex of air flow over your vehicle that makes it more fuel efficient.
They have also tried other myths like the dimpled car, which was inspired by the dimples situated around a golf ball and that is said to minimize wind resistance and travel farther than smooth golf balls. With that, they covered a car with layer of clay then pressed dimples around it and drove it around The results were amazing as fuel mileage improved from 26 miles per gallon to 29 miles on a single gallon. Other myths include taking right turns while driving, instead of driving normally, which is to wait for your turn go left. It’s said that when your vehicle is in an idle state, it consumes more gas as opposed to taking three right turns. Despite having a longer distance and is time consuming, the no left turn route improved fuel efficiency by 3%. Lastly, The “Great Gas Conspiracy” is a conspiracy theory, which states that gas companies are in working with car manufacturers to produce fuel inefficient cars. With this, they tried products believed to make your car consume less fuel. These included carburetors and a water fuel cell. All failed to make your car fuel efficient, some even made it worse. Surprisingly, one of the products used on this segment was cooking oil. It was used as an alternative to fuel and it made the engine run but was deemed to be inefficient.
Like any another resource, fuel might also run out in the future and we might have to find a suitable alternative or save on gas to prolong our resources.
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