High-Mileage Driving Tips

HOURCAR has a super-efficient fleet of shared cars (we think it’s the most efficient car-sharing fleet in the world) but how little gas they use depends, partly, on how you drive them. We’ll put up specific tips on our blog from time to time, but here are a few general hints to minimize fuel use in your HOURCAR trip:

• Take it easy. At speeds of greater than about 50 miles per hour, most of a car’s energy is used to overcome the air’s drag, which is proportional to the square of the speed of the wind. So driving at 70 creates twice the drag of driving at 50, which is why gas mileage drops down. If you don’t need to be somewhere right away, tooling along at 55 or 65 is more efficient (and safer) than pushing 75 on the freeway. You cannot change the laws of physics, Captain.

• Leave some room. Every time you brake, or accelerate quickly, it uses a lot more energy than if you drive at a steady speed. If you leave enough room between you and the vehicle in front of you, you can often coast to stops. And there’s no need to punch the gas just to tailgate someone. Plus, it’s a lot safer.

• Be safe. Don’t worry so much about driving efficiently that you forget to, well, drive. But driving efficiently is, in many ways, safer than driving inefficiently, so if you remember these tips you’re likely to be safer as well.