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Journal Tau Zero's Journal: Leaving the ranks of the gasoline-burners 10

Journal by Tau Zero
I'm happy to be replacing my old vehicles. My small car was lucky to get 38 MPG on a slow cruise, and typically got more like 34-36 on the highway. The big car burns even more fuel, achieving something like 26 MPG at 75 MPH and 30 MPG at a constant 60 MPH if I'm lucky. City mileage on the boat was as low as 16.

But I'm done with naptha for fuel; the new car is diesel. It looks to be delivering 40 MPG and it has plenty of room and tons of neat features. I filled it last weekend and have put 360 miles on it so far without the fuel gauge going below half! I need to improve the sound system and add a few other dress features, but other than that it looks to be exactly what I hoped for.

Next step: make my own fuel.

Update 6/14: According to the silly trip-computer thing I got over 45 MPG on the way home from work. We'll see how accurate it is Wednesday, when I fill it up again.

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Leaving the ranks of the gasoline-burners More

Leaving the ranks of the gasoline-burners

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  • This Report [simmonsco-intl.com] is making its way through the oil & gas industry right now - it is sobering, in a way. All of the reports on this site are quite interesting reading, this Simmons guy is one smart mofo. He apparently also has done more research than most anyone else on the Saudi Arabian oil reserves. Nobody knows much about what's happening there, they aren't exactly forthcoming.

    Can't wait to hear your thoughts,

    Pixie
    • (First the June/July Home Power and now your report... this seems to be my night for downloading PDF's. Unfortunately it takes much longer to download than it does to compose a response, so no commentary just yet.)

      With the world price of crude oil heading upwards from USD 40/bbl, it was more than prudent to move to the most fuel-efficient vehicle that would suit my needs. The field was narrow, restricted to hybrids and diesels - after finding that the wait for a Prius would be close to a year and the 4-sea

  • The newer Diesels cars here in Germany usually get 47 mpg ( 5l/100km ) and less.

    But still 40 is not too bad.
    • I could have put myself in 50 MPG territory, but the model that achieves that is too small to be my only car and I would have had to keep the big car or get a truck. I would rather not do either.
  • These guys have a system for powering your diesel-fueled car off of any kind of oil, for instance vegetable oil, or used restaraunt grease.

  • I have to agree with your lack of feeling sorry for those who choose to buy gas guzzlers. My first car -- bought in '89 with 120k miles on it (I know, the US really should have gone metric decades ago, sigh) got 20 miles/gallon on a good day, 15 on a bad day. I paid $700 for it. Drove it to 155k miles.

    Then I bought a real car. I bought a '92 Saturn SL for many reasons, but gas milage was one of the key reasons. My milage fluctuates noticably during the year -- I live in the Chicago suburbs so the tem

    • If the price of fuel doubles, I doubt I'd notice it either. Another nice feature of owning the diesel is that fuel is roughly 30 cents/gallon cheaper than unleaded regular where I am. Most people don't know this, as few filling stations carry diesel and even fewer post their diesel prices on their marquees.

      • Huh, lots of filling stations around here carry diesel. I figured it must be like that everywhere. Of course, I live in Chicago-land, so there is a lot of trucking traffic. And when I drive to Memphis to see my parents, well, the interstates have lots of trucking traffic. Hmm. :) Good to know. I had just assumed that because over the years I'd seem more and more filling stations carrying diesel, that it was true everywhere.

        Many of the stations here post diesel prices on their marquees. Even more co

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