this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
251 points (99.2% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26751 readers
1477 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Tell us why we should unexpectedly come to love your hobby.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TeckFire 8 points 1 year ago

Almost certainly this is not the case, except maybe in extreme circumstances. My car, for instance, gets approximately 25 miles per gallon average, traveling at highway speeds of 80ish MPH average. If I drop to 70 MPH, I can get 30 miles per gallon.

This is because the ultimate factors in gas mileage are fairly simple. Your engine RPM will increase fuel, and the higher your speed, the higher your RPM is required to be to put you at that speed. The amount of RPM increase needed to put you at a higher speed is more than the rate of engine time running. In other words, increasing horsepower requirements is more costly than engine runtime requirements. You can leave an engine idling for an hour and use less than a trip a few miles down which may take only minutes.

That said, while going slower saves gas, the biggest part will be the acceleration/deceleration parts of it. Accelerating takes much more power in a short amount of time to get your speed up, so the faster your acceleration, the more your RPMs will spike, and the more your fuel consumption is. Deceleration too. Letting your engine coast, or leaving it in gear while not accelerating, means your engine is using little to no fuel and yet is still rolling forward. The more you can take advantage of this, the less fuel used.

In the case of high acceleration and harsh braking, you turn a lot of energy into motion, and then convert that energy to heat for the brakes. If you turn a little energy into just enough motion to get you there eventually, and then let the engine slow down until it almost stops as you arrive, you waste the least energy. Ideal real world is somewhere in the middle.