3 ms·
A buddy of mine from the Air Force (I wasn't in AF, he was) told me they never fill above half-full unless you are going long distances. Apparently something to
by jermaustin1 4y ago
A buddy of mine from the Air Force (I wasn't in AF, he was) told me they never fill above half-full unless you are going long distances. Apparently something to do with MPGs and the weight of fuel.
I never listed to him, but to this day he still only fills his car up half way for better gas mileage. I'm sure it matters if you have a 200 gallon tank, but 60 pounds of fuel will not make a difference in a vehicle that weighs 3000 pounds. Adding a single passenger is going to be more than double that.
- Arrath 4y agoI can see it for something with a very large fuel capacity, that doesn't often get driven around motorpool/base unless deployed.
- jermaustin1 4y agoAgreed - it was dumb of him to adopt that in his civvy life, but I couldn't convince him otherwise.
- Johnny555 4y agoThe EPA says that for every 100 pounds of weight carried around by a car, fuel efficiency drops by around 1%. So if you avoid carrying around 8 gallons of fuel everywhere, you could increase fuel efficiency by around half a percent. Not a lot of savings. https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.jsp https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.jsp
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoThis is where EVs don’t work so well: you are carrying the entire weight of the battery no matter how much it is charged. Not so important for cars, but for electric planes it is significant.
- adrianN 4y agoRegenerative braking negates much of the weight penalty in cars.