Dealing with gas pains

It’s official: Gas is now more expensive than beer. Well, at least the regular kind and not those fancy imported ones. But until the car companies figure out how to make the internal combustion engine run on San Miguel we have no choice but to suck it in and pay at the pump. Or we could just stay at home, pop a DVD in the player, and enjoy a beer or two. Or three. Save the car for really important trips like re-stocking on the beer or getting a couple bags of chips to go with them.

It’s not going to work with me because, well, I’m not much of a beer guy anyway (working on it, though…) and I really need to go places almost every day. And much as I love to ride my bike, it’s not the most practical thing in the world to pedal two hours to a meeting and arrive all grungy and sweaty. Especially not in this miserable heat.

And that’s why the most important gadget in my car, something I pay even more attention to than the stereo, is the fuel efficiency computer. There really is no substitute for appreciating how much fuel (and by inference, money) you’re burning until you see it being computed right before your eyes. Before I got my current car (a Hyundai Elantra) I had been driving an old Honda Accord. It lacked an onboard computer, so the only way I could figure out my fuel efficiency was after every gas-up: divide the number of kilometers on my trip odometer (reset after every fill-up) by the number of liters I’d take in. I was happy to get 8 km/l, although my usual score would be at the low to mid-7 km/l range.

Then I got the Elantra, which simplifies my mental math by showing my fuel efficiency with a big LCD screen right smack between the speedometer and tachometer. Every new car should have this as standard equipment. Since it uses the current standard of “liters per 100 km” instead of the more useful “km/l” format, I have this compulsive tendency to keep computing the changing score on every stoplight. The first month, I averaged 9-10 liters per 100km (10-11 km/l) of mostly city driving, which is a pretty good score considering there’s always a lot of traffic to deal with. Coming from the Accord I was very happy with the efficiency; nothing like a bit of comparison to realize how much money I was burning all along.

Then I got a new Personal Record last month: 8.4 liters per 100 km, or 11.9 km/l. No hypermile tricks, always with the A/C on, just light-footed driving and properly timing my trips so I rarely ever got stuck in traffic. Unfortunately, I got a little too cocky with that score so I went too liberally on the next full tank. I may have even revved the car past 3,000 rpm just to stretch its legs for a change. Imagine that. Pair that with exceptionally heavy traffic, full blast usage of the A/C in this infernal heat, and my next score was 11 liters per 100 km: 9.1 km/l.

Actually, this is still a fairly impressive fuel efficiency figure for anyone with a history of using gas guzzlers, but it’s just strange how quickly one’s perspective can change in a matter of a few weeks. With the high price of fuel these days, only the truly wealthy can honestly say that they could care less about its cost. When you have to budget for gas along with everything else in life, it becomes quite important when it starts to eat up into other things that need spending for. Like utility bills, or food, or movie dates with the spouse. By the way, aside from fuel price increases, has anyone noticed how expensive movies cost these days? And that’s without that 3D nonsense, too.

But I digress.

Conserving fuel isn’t rocket science. Shift into the tallest gear whenever possible, press lightly on the accelerator, conserve momentum, and plan out your trips so you cut out the wasteful ones. And kill the damn engine as soon as you’re parked.

There is another thing I appreciate about fuel-efficient cars that also happen to be fun to drive. The less fuel you waste idling and in traffic, the more you can spare for when the road opens up for a brief, liberating blast. After all, a little speed is good for the soul. Clears out the carbon, too.