Although 95MPG is impressive, this is the visual equivalent to free trade coffee.

Posted at 12:15 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by William Munns

Ugly as hell, but I can’t argue with the results. I wonder what would happen if someone did this with a VW Rabbit Diesel?

Posted at 12:44 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by Orv

nice improvement, but oh god my eyes they burn

Posted at 1:39 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by zigzagjoe

Sometimes the beauty is in the ugliness… well hackiness is awesome atleast. Maybe a lick of paint and it would be a thunderbirds collectible.

Posted at 2:21 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by Ali Raheem

Ewwwwww…

Great idea; disgusting implementation.

If he just paid a body shop $1-2k to do it right he would have probably seen a 0.1CD. Someone should introduce this man to Bondo and Paint.

Posted at 2:22 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by Ginsu

yeah, thats a really sweet mod there, but even if your not going for asthetics it looks like it was slapped together in a garage one night.

the start of something awesome.. keyword is start.

Posted at 2:55 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by xrazorwirex

thats the madest thing i’ve seen in a while, i proper love it!
never really realsied how aerodynamics can effect mpg so much.
it would be wicked to see more cars like this (and more people beening inventive with being “green” in mind) ….*drifts off into post apocalyptic hacking fantasy*

Posted at 3:35 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by }{itch

the uber green hack that somebody should do is make a solar powered hydrogen distiller (or whatever you call the device that splits water apart). Then use that to fill up the cells in your hydrogen car.

i think ill wait for someone else to do it first, given that i dont want to blow up… anytime soon…

Posted at 4:27 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by xrazorwirex

it may not look the best, but i’d take it for 95 MPG, he ought to enter this, the automotive X-Prive

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/08/01/automotive-x-prize-announces-first-31-teams-accepted-to-competit/

Posted at 4:43 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by sean smith

To be fair as far as aesthetics go, its not like the car he started with has won any recent beauty pageants

Posted at 4:46 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by McSquid

95mpg? I don’t believe that for a minute.

Then there’s this gem:

“Most of my driving is at night, especially in the winter, and night driving is costing me 2 to 3 mpg in additional electrical load from the lights.”

I won’t believe that simply having your goddamn headlignts on will cost you anywhere near that much.

Also, I wouldn’t want to be in that car in any kind of crosswind or behind any kind of large vehicle.

Posted at 5:19 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by josh

josh: headlights/wipers/heated windscreen/fans and other accessories use 6.6% of the total useful energy output of a gasoline engine, and headlights are a large percentage of that. (the 6.6% figure is from my own calculations and some approximations – if someone could find a better figure it would be great).

Looking at it another way, of the ~10kw out of the engine, an extra 100w (or 1%) could go to the headlights.

Having said that mpg will be lower at night due to using the brakes more because the driver sees obstacles/bends/hills later.

Posted at 5:37 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by O Mattos

can someone confirm – is MPG miles per US gallon, or Miles per imperial gallon, or does it depend who’s saying it?

Posted at 5:39 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by O Mattos

Check the Honda Insight. I get 72mpg and it looks a lot nicer.

Posted at 5:42 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by Emmanuel

He should look into metal halide lamps, rather than dimmers or cutting out one light, for his headlights.

It’s pretty recently that they’ve been able to make polycrystalline alumina transparent enough for that application, but some prototypes should be available if he contacts the manufacturer.

Also, he may want to consider giving over control of his alternator’s field coil current to a microcontroller: it’ll allow regenerative braking and perhaps some other tricks, especially if he switches to a system with more windings.

Posted at 6:38 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by Joel

@5: I doubt there are any body shops that could do it for $2000. The corner of my Crown Vic got hit and they quoted me over $2k to fix it — more than half of that was just for paint. I bet to get this kind of thing done at a professional shop would be at least $5k.

@11: I’m not too sure about his figures either. 50 mpg sounds high for a Civic — my ‘94 Civic Si topped out at 40 mpg if it was gently driven. But as long as his measurement methods are consistent, it’s still a 53% improvement no matter what the actual numbers are.

2-3 mpg for the headlights suggests the headlight load is around 2% of his engine output. That sounds high; he’d have to be cruising on only 5 horsepower or so. Later I think I’ll run the numbers and see if I can approximate how much horsepower he’s actually consuming…

Posted at 6:47 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by Orv

@14: Yeah, but even a used Insight will cost you at least $10k.

Posted at 6:48 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by Orv

I think this is fantastic. I just wish others had some more positive comments. I mean, look at the work this guy has put into this. I doubt if any of the armchair critics have attempted anything similar.

I wonder if it would help at all to completely remove the belt from the alternator and have one that uses ram air to spin the alternator with a propeller, similar to some ordnance on NAVY jets. Would that offset anything or just cause more drag and make it a useless mod? Just wondering. If he’s commuting at mostly highway speeds it might be an option.

Posted at 7:10 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by Duke Starbuckle

OK, running the numbers for 95 mpg at 60 mph, I figure that amount of fuel would produce about 8.5 horsepower at the rear wheels. Assumptions I used to get there:
- 30% overall efficiency for the engine and drivetrain (a guess, but a typical number for most cars)
- 114,100 BTU/gallon of gasoline

I don’t know enough to figure out whether this is reasonable given the C/d and frontal area of his car, though.

Posted at 7:20 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by Orv

@18: I don’t think it would help; the energy has to come from somewhere. Reducing the load on the alternator is the way to go, and it sounds like he’s on the right track there.

Posted at 7:21 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by Orv

It seems like some of you guys are only just hearing about hypermiling. Check out gassavers.org or google wayne gerdes. The forums over at gassavers has crazy amounts of info on engine accessory load vs. mpg, electrical load increases vs. decreases in mpg, etc. Not certain, but I think this guy posts over there as well.

Posted at 9:53 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by Rubicon

Soooooo – I don’t buy any of his cited MPG. It’s known that air resistance increases as a square of velocity:
resistance = velocity^2
(http://dev.physicslab.org/Document.aspx?doctype=3&filename=Dynamics_AirResistance.xml)

He gives us:

95mpg at 30 to 65mph
85mpg at 70mph (change -10mpg)
65mpg at 80mph (change -20mpg)
50mpg at 90mph (change -15mpg)

Since the mpg should decrease substantially as speed increases, EVEN WITH “IMPROVED” AERODYNAMICS. We know that the air resistance can be accurately approximated as:
AR = -A*v^b
where A and b are related to the car geometry (fixed)
and air viscosity (also fixed)

Then his MPG should decrease greatly as speed increases and continue to reduce more and more as speed increases, so his numbers a baloney.

You also do not want a tear drop shaped rear end, you want a VERY steep drop on the back, straight down would be ideal as this will decrease the drag due to the air moving along the increased surface of the car since you are tripping into turbulent flow at the back end. This is the same reasoning that caused mythbusters to show that you are better off leaving your tailgate up, not down, as you’ll have less resistance.

There is also no mention of the added weight of all of this paneling, which is not weight free. He may as well left the whole thing alone and spent money regearing the transmission to some ridiculously high gearing, concentrate on covering/eliminating any holes in the front of the car (bumper/gaps around any lights), and finally make the back of the car more sheer than long and drawn out like that.

. . . and it’s really ugly

Posted at 10:06 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by CM

Seems a bit far fetched. One would think the added weight of the “body kit” would decrease MPG. Plus the 1992 Civic has fairly good aerodynamics to begin with. How about going to a higher temperature thermostat and advancing the the static timing as far as possible. Install a vacuum gauge and change your driving habits according to the vacuum gauge. You will see a very serious MPG improvement for about $75 for parts and a small time expenditure.

Posted at 10:10 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by JB

For a cheap can OBD II monitor for vehicles check out http://www.obdpros.com

Posted at 10:59 pm on Jan 2nd, 2008 by Mike Snyder

i call bullsh*t. no way in hell he jumped 30mpg by adding that mess. the added weight would negate any drag coefficient savings.

all that mess = major dork factor

Posted at 12:19 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by chris

I’m guessing he’s single.

Posted at 1:07 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by VonSkippy

To all the people calling bullshit, go ahead and try it yourself and bask in the wonderful empirical basis of science. The addition of at most 150 lbs is not going to decrease fuel efficiency by much, however if that 150 lbs goes towards lowering drag coefficient from something like .30 to .15 you are going to see some serious improvements in efficiency.

This kind of modding is not new, but as pointed out by some of the other less mature commenters it can mess with the aesthetics of the car, so you don’t see many production vehicles incorporating these elements. I agree that much of his work looks far less than professional, but from what I gather from the forum topic it’s a work in progress and most of the fairings etc are just prototypes to test performance.

To see what you get if you design a car around aerodynamics check out the Aptera Type-1. A production level hybrid car offered by Aptera that gets 300 mpg, costs 30,000 (they started taking deposits in September)

Posted at 1:20 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by josh

#26, i have to agree and disagree with you.

first i’ll disagree. I’ve taken enough ME classes that deal with more types of dynamics than i care to remember, and i can not see that modification doing that well by itself. In fact i can not see his fab skills making anywhere near that large of a difference. yes the less drag will help, but those mods also added a ton more drag and the creation of eddies. Simulating his work in a PC would be nearly impossible because modeling that workmanship would be nearly impossible.

on to better things however. I do believe 95 mpg in that car if done correctly would be possible. However it would require gutting it. switches for nearly every pully and electrical item in the car. and possibly even a replacement transmission.

modification discussion could go on forever about this and it would go nowhere really. I would actually like confirmation on the 95 before i believe it.

Posted at 1:56 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by chewy

@27 As stated in the original write-up along with the forum post, he’s using a supermid to monitor instantaneous fuel consumption. there’s nothing that needs to be confirmed, it’s all there.

Posted at 2:51 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by josh

josh: and we have never seen mods here that stretch the truth at all either. sorry but one person saying something is completely different than verification of that as well. anyway good for him for driving that, but i’m a skeptic, kinda like that water engine thing we have been told about since we could walk :P

Posted at 4:29 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by chewy

I think reducing the strain by the alternator would be better by reducing the load on the electrical system, switching to HID headlights at 35w each would be a start from the 55w fillimant lamps, and also converting the rest of the light bulbs to LEDs would give an improvement.

Great work, even if it is as ugly as ****! lol. But nice to see someone put efficiency before looks. brave guy.

Posted at 4:54 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by Dave C

Given the world record is 12645 mpg, I don’t find 95mpg difficult to believe at all.

Posted at 5:35 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by Srimech

I don’t believe this for a minute, the speedometer gear/sensor is broken or they are smoking crack.

Posted at 5:35 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by mike

Why are you spamming my website from KurtismaturateSolomon@hackaday.com

Posted at 7:12 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by Oliver

Pussy magnet. I bet the girls can’t keep their panties on around that fine machine.

Posted at 9:00 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by PsyKotyk

I am skeptical about MPG at higher than 50MPH. his design is so thrown together that the seams and caulking mess will start to cause more drag at those speeds ( and the wheel skirts should flap like wings, then rip off and take out another car’s windshield.)

Now, build a wooden buck, lay some glass and make a REAL body mod that is smooth and has laminar air flow instead of what he has and I’ll take a closer look. But, legality start’s to hit, I guarentee that any cop that wants to can impound his current car as unsafe. He really needs to refine it and make it look less like a rolling white turd and more like a “what the hell is that?”

On the bright side, I love how he is proving that hybrids are nothing but a boatload of BS. a regualr civic getting 50-60mpg SAME mileage as a hybrid.. Proof that hybrids are a buttload of BS and regular cars can do what they can without the complicated crud.

Posted at 9:25 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by fartface

98mpg, Yeah I can see that.
The thing to remember is at highway speeds you need very little power to continue to coast, the majority of the power you are using however is to overcome Aerodynamic drag.
In traffic or at low speeds This would probably decrease mpg (more effort required from the engine to move itself)
Ive the “Areo” style Crown Victoria and on the highway 70+mph it does get very good economy

Posted at 10:11 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by Eyuras

@38: Steep drop? WTF are you on mate. Aerodynamics has told us forever that you want the air flow to come back together smoothly behind the vehicle to avoid the creation of a dragalicious low-pressure zone behind the vehicle. Dumbass.

On the topic of the precise MPG numbers, well instantaneous readings are as good as shit on pie, though I’d say his kit still has some significant improvements.

Posted at 10:33 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by TheKhakinator

@35: Steep drop? WTF are you on mate. Aerodynamics has told us forever that you want the air flow to come back together smoothly behind the vehicle to avoid the creation of a dragalicious low-pressure zone behind the vehicle. Dumbass.

On the topic of the precise MPG numbers, well instantaneous readings are as good as shit on pie, though I’d say his kit still has some significant improvements.

Posted at 10:34 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by TheKhakinator

@19: Civics are Front Wheel Drive…

Posted at 10:57 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by Jordan

if we are going to get anyone to believe the stated MPG we will need some proof. can someone tell this person to go on a road trip? ideally he should also go through some large city and find out the MPG. if this does all turn out to be true then i will think about doing this to my car, and maybe we could move the experiments up a bit and try this on a coach. yes it will look ridiculous but if you can get a better MPG than a hybrid car then we can send this information to some group or a car program and we can all have a good laugh at the morons that design cars to sound good, “this car is a hybrid so it uses even less petrol (or gas, the watered down american version) and is even better for the environment” “yeah, it uses more petrol than a coach!”

Posted at 11:08 am on Jan 3rd, 2008 by notanexpert

Not sure if I believe the mpg either, but nice work. My only fear is that this guy is going to start thinking of himself as some vigilante Michael Knight type character and start cruising the street looking for crime. He’s already got the car talking. Isn’t there a danger of that rear fairing taking out a pedestrian on the sidewalk when you make sharp turns?

Posted at 12:01 pm on Jan 3rd, 2008 by Nomen Luni

Haha, really great idea. That guy is hardcore.

I also like how people misuse formulae in an attempt to show their “mad skillz”. 95 mpg is not an unreasonable number, and he’s measuring it directly in real-time…I don’t think there is a need for a “road trip” since he knows the fuel economy where ever he is.

Posted at 12:18 pm on Jan 3rd, 2008 by Michael

I doubt very seriously that a 92 honda civic could get 95 MPG, even with zero atmospheric drag.

Posted at 12:50 pm on Jan 3rd, 2008 by nephroth

So I have a 92 Golf mk2 and I am gagging for the live MPG lcd screen which didn’t feature in my model. Is there a how to guide for that anyway?

Posted at 1:50 pm on Jan 3rd, 2008 by Tom

Most of you seem to have never heard of aeromodding at all in your life, please go ahead and google it, *it is nothing new*.

Thousands have people have done similiar mods to this, front and rear wheel skirts, wiper windscreen, boat tail, belly panel, front air dam, and relocating the side-view mirrors inside.

All of this significantly reduces air drag. Most cars have a Cd of around .3 or so. Reducing this to .15-.18 with mods is relatively simple. Cars designed around reducing Cd can reach as low as around .07. It’s nothing new.

To the people suggesting mods to the electrical systems/alternator yes that can help some, but you won’t see nearly the increase in efficiency as you would from aero-mods, low rolling resistance tires, and supermiling driving techniques. Which do you think is more important, saving 100-200 W in electrical load or lowering that (approximately) 15000 newton force pushing backwards on your car.

@35 you’re an idiot. a teardrop is one of the most aerodynamic shapes, this why fluids in free fall assume this shape. they want to assume a minimum energy configuration like all things in nature (this is rain in case you haven’t figured it out). Also you might want to go study up some more on fluid dynamics rather than regurgitating simplified dormulas that you learn in high-school physics, trust me it’s not that simple.

SO in closing to all the people calling bullshit look at the hundreds of examples and hard data out there by tons of modders. Which do you think is more plausible: a giant conspiracy contrived to fool people you can increase fuel economy by 50% or DIY hackers who understand how to apply aerodynamics. Time for a shave with occam’s razor.

Posted at 3:17 pm on Jan 3rd, 2008 by josh

@45
> @35 you’re an idiot. a teardrop is one of the most aerodynamic shapes, this why fluids in free fall assume this shape.

except that they don’t, they make shapes very similar to spheres

Posted at 4:54 pm on Jan 3rd, 2008 by William Munns

This is when this car is done… better: http://www.aptera.com/
150+MPG Made in California. Going on sale soon!
Kickass.

Posted at 4:55 pm on Jan 3rd, 2008 by Kaj

@46: Hahah, I waiting for someone to say that. Teardrops… lol how ridiculous.

Posted at 5:57 pm on Jan 3rd, 2008 by Jim

Do the police bother you because of all the add ons? I would not mind driving something like this for the mileage it gets.

Posted at 9:57 pm on Jan 3rd, 2008 by dan

However, you must also keep in mind that a cars engine and transmission tend to provide peak MPG at a particular range of speed. Since the fuel efficiency wanders with speed because of the engine speed/gearing AND aerodynamics, your statement is an oversimplification. A large portion of the paneling appears to be made from corrugated plastic and aluminum, and the glass hatch has been removed, which reduces weight as well.
A “straight down” shape is not good either, unless the body leading up to it forms a “Kamm” back, which is basically a teardrop-type shape with the end cut off. This is done because it is found that, if you form enough of the airstream, it will follow that shape without the speed. So yes, you could remove SOME of that end and get similar results, but it does have an advantage over the original rear hatch.
Volkswagen used to show off that their Jetta, because the trunk led the car to a more narrow tail, had better wind tunnel results than the hatchback Golf.
OTOH, I agree that it’s ugly :)
I’m just waiting for the Aptera to get sold up here in Canada…. http://www.aptera.com 150+MPG plug-in hybrid that I could actually afford.

Posted at 12:39 am on Jan 4th, 2008 by Kaj

@45
>except that they don’t, they make shapes very similar to spheres

Umm no – surface tension causes them to go from spheres at small diameters to hamburger type shapes at somewhat larger diameters and eventually annular rings as big drops fall apart… USGS

@49
If aero were the only consideration for fuel economy – you’d be totally right… But that’s not the case – I mean, one would assume the engine speed changes (and efficiency) at all of those different velocities :P

Seriously, why do people think a small amount of weight is such a big factor… Given the materials, and the parts removed… It’s no different than having an extra passenger (if that). I can say from watching my scangauge – one extra passenger doesn’t kill 30mpg off my car.. In fact, it’s outside the realm of significance…

Posted at 3:02 am on Jan 4th, 2008 by tre

@16 (pt 2) in addition to “driving lightly” this man has a hand throttle and a microcontroller to monitor his actual realtime fuel consumption. He is not just driving, he’s being super careful and seems to have devoted as much (though from the looks of the vehicle…way more) time to perfecting that aspect of his fuel consumption. You can save a surprising amount of fuel by altering your driving habits in such a way.

I think I buy his figures. He’s trying very hard.

Posted at 4:07 am on Jan 4th, 2008 by a different josh

@21: Weight mainly only impacts the energy needed to accelerate. If he’s doing mainly freeway driving the added weight won’t matter much, but the reduced drag sure will. (For the nitpickers: Yes, weight increases rolling resistance somewhat, but this is a relatively small issue — especially if he’s running high tire pressures.)

@33: Hybrids are meant to improve city mileage, not highway. On the highway there’s no braking energy to recover. So they’re not “BS”, they’re just intended for a different application.

@35: How do you define “good”? My aero-style Crown Vic is lucky to top 22 mpg. I don’t consider that anything to write home about. There are pickup trucks that do better.

@38: My bad. I should have said “at the drive wheels,” not “at the rear wheels.”

Posted at 1:33 pm on Jan 4th, 2008 by Orv

@37 I said nothing about a “steep drop”
@54 I get almost 28mpg on the highway at night, I found it was slightly more economical to not use cruise control for some reason

Posted at 4:21 pm on Jan 4th, 2008 by Eyuras

according to wired, this guy is a 55 year old EET, who just eyeballed everything, and the 95mpg measure is just when hes on the interstate going downhill on broken in tires and idling / coasting and all this other impractical stuff. the real measure is around lower 70ish i believe.

honestly he could do a better job with some fiberglass and some body putty.

Posted at 1:09 pm on Jan 7th, 2008 by xrazorwirex

This is such a load of crap, if it was that easy to increase and inexpensive to increase fuel economy do you not think an auto manufacturer would simply do it considering the billions of dollars at stake?

There is a very significant consumer demand for fuel efficient vehicles.. Why else would anyone else in their right mind drive a Mercedes Smart Car? Or hybrids..

If this nut thinks for $400 he can crack some fuel economy secret he’s obviously siphoning gas from his neighbors and ingesting large quantities in the process.

Considering the last three US automakers are in a downward spiral and facing a painful death do you not think if increasing fuel economy almost %50 was that simple and cheep they wouldn’t do it, it would save them overnight. Heck companies like Toyota and Honda would be all over this.

This guys a fraud, his claims are bogus, and anyone who believes him is a moron.

Posted at 10:20 pm on Jan 8th, 2008 by jerry

I really like the mod. Even if it doesnt get the result of 95mpg, this guy spend time thinking about how to make his car more efficient and that is a good start.

And yes, reducing has been done before, a long time before. In 1921 Rumpler presented a car with 0.28cd. Doesnt seem to good today, but back then it was only a third of the resistance many other cars had.

http://www.deutsches-museum.de/sammlungen/ausgewaehlte-objekte/meisterwerke-iii/tropfenwagen/

Posted at 4:20 pm on Jan 9th, 2008 by k.-i

@57 – That made me laugh :p

He didn’t crack any secret – it’s well known that streamlined shapes are far superior…

Yes, mfr’s have picked up on it… The VW 1L project, for example (235mpg)… Or the Aptera as mentioned earlier (while it is a hybrid – it’s still 150mpg). The prius does in fact share a similar design (it’s more kammback though). And the best tank ever recorded for an unmodified Prius is somewhere around 110mpg. Driving technique + aero + mechanical… It’s no secret ;)

The problem comes in driving and parking… Long cars don’t work well in an urban situation – especially if you need to parallel park… And even when done well – many people still think they’re dead ugly.

And the unfortunate fact is – despite oil prices – 50%+ of the new car market share in the US is… SUVs and “personal trucks.”

Too bad Kei class cars aren’t sold in the US

Posted at 2:51 am on Jan 10th, 2008 by tre

All I know it that’s going to be a bitch to park.

Posted at 4:49 pm on Jan 14th, 2008 by hparra

I can just hear Doc Brown yelling, EIGHTY EIGHT MILES PER GALLON

Posted at 11:57 am on Jan 16th, 2008 by swampman

its not possible. the highest mpg possible from one gallon of gas is about 100. with an internal combustion engine the highest usable energy from one gallon is 50mpg. unless he invented his own engine hes lying.

Posted at 4:40 am on Jan 27th, 2008 by sven

The whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts. Combining aerodynamics with hypermiling and the plethora of good suggestions mentioned in this thread should achieve 95mpg+ without difficulty.

I like the paneled underside idea. It is well overlooked. Out of sight, out of mind is quite true. It also should help prevent oil/engine fluid spillage onto the road and thus into the environment. In fact, how green is any car that doesn’t alleviate such spillage?

If the numbers can be properly proven to Honda or another entrepreneurial manufacturer, and just the major determinants of drag reduction are used, a chance to profit in the short term from mass producing mod-kits for select vehicles is tempting.

Aesthetics can be incorporated along the line to assuage the libido factor.

Parking is only an issue if you don’t know how. I drive limousines part-time and parking stretches in Seattle hasn’t presented any problems for me.

I submit that long-haul trucks could save the most fuel nationwide by incorporating better aerodynamics. The long stretches of freeway, less braking, etc…

As concerns the bigger picture, I submit that the greatest problem with over-consumption of gas and oil actually comes from the fact that people are inordinantly ‘married to their car’ due to the lack of affordable housing and self-sufficient communities which force people to drive excessively to their places of work and shopping. This is due to ’social engineering’ designed to secure political power in the hands of a few. This is done by surreptious manipulation of the (OH-SO-BORING-I-CAN’T-PAY-CLOSE-ATTENTION-TO-THE-DEVIL-IN-THE-DETAILS!) building codes and zoning regulations in America (the biggest consumer of oil and gas ordinarily) that disallow communities (powerbases) to form and solve problems on a local level.

Sorry for deviating off topic a bit. I actually limited myself this time.

Kudos to the developer for making the efforts to solve the gas consumption problem. As for the unbelieving detractors in this thread…let he who is without BS cast the first turd.

garthfromseattle

Posted at 4:26 am on Feb 13th, 2009 by Garth

FYI, Mike now has a web site about the car: http://www.Aerocivic.com

Posted at 5:24 am on Feb 14th, 2009 by Darin

Great article. There are products out on the market that have been proven to increase fuel efficiency while reducing emissions and wear on your engine. gogreensyntek.com is a website that has information on a product that will do just that.

Posted at 12:43 pm on Feb 26th, 2009 by ALC

My 1990 crown victoria boxbody gets 35 mpg on highway with 5 people aboard (cruise set at 55mph) . Things i did to improve milage are nitrogen filled tires, synthetics everywhere removed landau top ,aero wheel covers.

Posted at 5:59 pm on Sep 28th, 2009 by pvg