Whether you’re concerned about rising fuel prices or reducing greenhouse gas emissions, choosing a fuel efficient vehicle can help. Carpooling and avoiding unnecessary trips will decrease your vehicle’s fuel consumption, as will sticking to a regular maintenance schedule.
서울운전연수In addition, minimizing wind resistance and choosing a lighter car will also improve your mileage.
New Fuel Sources
At the molecular level, many alternative fuels look exactly like gasoline or diesel. And they often work in the same tanks and engines. But at the macro level, their performance is much different.
Biofuels, electricity, natural gas, and hydrogen offer great potential for increasing fuel efficiency. They can help reduce dependence on imported oil and produce less pollution and greenhouse gases than gasoline or diesel fuels. They can also be used in hybrid-electric vehicles that combine an internal combustion engine with electric motors. 서울운전연수
Liquid biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel can be used in existing internal combustion engines (ICE) without major modifications. They can also be used in fuel cells with high-efficiency electrical motors that drive vehicles or buildings. Hydrogen, produced by electrolysis with electricity from non-polluting sources such as solar, wind, or nuclear power, can be used in fuel cell vehicles that produce only water vapor as emissions.
New fuels and vehicles will need extensive research and development to make them economically viable. CO2RUe researchers are addressing a number of technical barriers, from designing better electrolyzers to engineering the microbes that produce them to conducting large-scale field trials of coal gasification.
Lightweight Motor Vehicles
The lighter a vehicle is, the less power it needs to accelerate. A 10 percent reduction in weight can boost fuel efficiency by 6 to 8 percent. That’s why manufacturers are focusing on lightweight materials. They are also looking at ways to improve aerodynamics and reduce accessory power demand.
Lightweight cars use less gasoline, which is good news for consumers who are paying higher gas prices. The vehicles emit fewer greenhouse gases as well. The government’s new rules requiring a 54.5 mile per gallon standard by 2025 will put additional pressure on manufacturers to make their vehicles more efficient. 서울운전연수
Various technologies are helping automakers raise fuel efficiency without the safety trade-off that often comes with reducing a vehicle’s weight. These include electric and hybrid vehicles, which can operate at a lower speed and do not require a large amount of energy-absorbing structures like those found in heavy SUVs.
Many components of a car, such as the tires and the battery, can be made of lightweight materials. These include high-strength steel, magnesium and aluminum alloys, and carbon composites. Federal crash tests have shown that these materials perform as well as conventional steel in a crash. They are also significantly cheaper, which can help offset any increase in cost due to their manufacture.
All-Electric Cars
Electric vehicles are all about efficiency—and that means they can deliver significant savings on the cost of fuel. EVs can cost more to buy at the point of sale because they often come fully loaded with cutting-edge technology and big batteries, but over time they usually work out cheaper to run than combustion cars. That’s especially true if drivers take advantage of off-peak electricity rates for charging their vehicles at home.
Some EVs, such as the Porsche Taycan GTS with its 93.4-kWh battery pack, operate exclusively on electric power, while others—known as plug-in hybrid EVs (PHEVs)—use gasoline to provide additional power when needed. In either case, their driving ranges are typically comparable to that of gasoline-powered cars, though EPA estimates are based on driving habits and conditions, and can vary.
Many EVs are also designed with advanced technologies that allow them to interact with the energy grid and store excess electricity, reducing the overall consumption of fossil fuels and energy waste. This vehicle-to-grid capability is known as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology and may help make EVs even more efficient in the long run.
Another factor to consider is that EVs produce no tailpipe emissions, and their engines require far less maintenance than conventional cars’ complex internal-combustion systems. They also tend to use fewer fluids, and regenerative braking reduces the need for friction brake pads. That all adds up to lower ownership costs, according to a recent Consumer Reports study, which found that on average, EV owners spend 60% less on fuel than those who drive traditional cars.
Technology
While we have made tremendous advances in reducing the amount of gasoline a vehicle uses to drive, it is still important to continually improve fuel efficiency. It can save drivers money, reduce environmental pollution and our dependence on oil.
The fuel consumption of a vehicle is measured by the distance a car travels on a certain volume of fuel, known as a fuel economy metric (miles per gallon in America and kilometers per liter in Europe and other countries where this measurement is used). It can be determined using a standard test cycle, or driving habits that may be more representative of real world conditions can be incorporated into the testing process.
A wide range of technologies can be employed to make cars more fuel efficient, ranging from adding a turbocharger to an engine to improving transmissions. Increasing the octane rating of fuel also helps vehicles run more efficiently. Researchers are examining ways to make engines and cars more fuel efficient without changing many other attributes that consumers want, such as performance, cargo capacity, and comfort.
Improving the fuel efficiency of conventional passenger cars is one of the most direct ways that we can cut our nation’s fuel consumption and reliance on foreign oil. However, improvements in fuel efficiency are only a small portion of the solution when it comes to containing global warming to the 2 degrees Celsius goal. Other steps include cutting emissions from buildings and reducing our use of fossil fuels like coal and natural gas.