I live about 3/4 of a mile up a lane with a drop of 35ft approx to the junction where it joins the "main" road. Not much granted, but the engine has an easy time for that 3/4 of a mile and the fuel computer reads in the 40s mpg in summer by the time I reach the junction. The engine's still not hot but it's getting there. On the return journey I'm doing the "climb" with a hot engine. So - am I saving fuel by living on this miniscule bump?
JH
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Does living on a hill save fuel?
Only if you never go home again
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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No because JH allways comes home from the other side (Joke)
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You can accurately see the drop in height above sea level at the bottom of google earth in small text. I can't imagine the difference being significant.
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You would think that running down the slope with a cold engine and up with a hot engine must help a tiny bit - you could see that the other way around would be detrimental.
Although perhaps any saving would be negated (to some extent) by the lightly loaded engine being colder (than if it had been more heavily loaded) when it hits the main road?
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You would think that running down the slope with a cold engine and up with a hot engine must help a tiny bit - you could see that the other way around would be detrimental.
With a diesel there would be more advantage still in this scenario, as the diesel and its high compression engine should in theory warm up slightly on the ovrun down the hill, even though it is using no fuel.
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I suspect Google Earth interpolates between contours - I can't see what else it could do to give a different height at every point?
A handheld 'sensor' gps with a barometric altimeter will give you a fairly accurate idea of the height difference - I was astonished to find that mine can tell whether it's on the floor or the table.
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Where do I look for the land height on Google Earth?
All I have in the bottom right is the height above the surface of the viewpoint, which I play with by imagining I'm flying along at whatever altitude I've set on the reading in the bottom right.
Or have I got it wrong?
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I borrowed a Honda Jazz from the dealer and coasted 3 miles (in neutral) down the M621, from Birstall to Leeds. The trip MPG said 150 mpg! By the time I had finished doing a trip of 35 miles I averaged 60 MPG. Thus I surmise its an advantage to be at the top of the hill!
Dennis
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The other bright spot about living on a hill is the minimal risk of being flooded. Prefer that than any gains/losses in MPG.
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I can confirm that - living on a hill - saves you energy when running. It enables you to start running downhill when half asleep with minimal effort. Coming home after a 5 mile run is a different matter.
Unfortunately you can still flood living on a hill if what was a dip in the ground becomes a watercourse in heavy rain - as my neighbours 200 meters up the road found in July. Their koi carp are probably in the sea by now.. Our downwards sloping away from the house drive was flooded under 15cms of water for an hour..a once every 10 year event.
As far as driving is concerned, the risks in snow outweigh any fuel savings imo.
madf
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There might be other more significant factors than fuel consumption. It is accepted that a cold engine should be started and warmed up quickly to minimise wear. Running down a hill will delay warm-up. Conversely starting up a hill would make it warm up faster.
The logical thing would be to coast down the hill and then start the engine at the bottom. But that would hardly be safe, with minimal brakes or steering.
Or you could keep the car at the bottom, and live five years longer because of the beneficial walking exercise.
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>>It is accepted that a cold engine should be started and warmed up quickly to minimise wear.
It is accepted that it is not sensible to thrash a cold engine. Living at the bottom and starting off going up a hill must surely be worse for the car than OP's situation?
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Well, we don't know what kind of hill we are dealing with. But going up even a steep hill at a steady comfortable speed in a low gear is not necessarily thrashing it. Just a comfotable warm up possibly. Whereas downhill would be even worse than idling - fast, but no load at all, and too much cooling.
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and live five years longer
but that means an extra 5 years fuel (and food and .........)
--
pmh (was peter)
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You'll be carrying less fuel on the return journey too. Although you may be a kg heavier if you've eaten at work.
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You'll be carrying less fuel on the return journey too.
Not indefinitely. If you always return with less fuel than you started with (and having consumed during the day any additional purchases) eventually you will return with only just enough to get up the hill, and arrive home with the tank empty.
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A kilo?! What do you have for lunch - a mountain of Polish sausages?!
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I borrowed a Honda Jazz from the dealer and coasted 3 miles (in neutral) down the M621 from Birstall to Leeds.
If you had coasted in gear you would have used no fuel at all (modern engine management) and been a lot safer to yourself and others.
MVP
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From Tuesday's Telegraph:
Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,? he said, a calculation based on the Government?s official fuel emission figures. ?If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You?d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.
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driving wouldnt be so inefficient if you didnt have to slow down and speed up again for no real safety related reason for speed bumps, and other traffic "calming" measures, total waste of fuel and emmissions that is
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"You?d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving"
Written by a muppet. Anyone who knows anything about diet knows to eat meat to replace calories burned is inefficient. Carbohydrates!
The entire carbon debate is dragged into disrepute by people writing about things they are ignorant of. The writer must have been either a journalist .. or a politician:-)
madf
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Why aren't there more cars with larger wheels at the back than the front?
This design is cheaper to run because, effectively, the car's always going down hill so uses less fuel.
Only the dragster-type car industry seems to have cottoned on to this; those races are so competitive that the few extra miles-per-hour gained by having much larger wheels at the back so being permanently running down hill are worth it.
Maybe they've patented it so know one else can share the benefits?
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a car on top of a hill has more potential energy than a car at the bottom of a hill, but if you want to save energy take a side road back up...il get my coat
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Lounge Lizard, a car travels parallel to the road surface regardless of whether the wheels sizes are the same or not. (For a nanosecond I thought you were being serious.)
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L\'escargot.
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Engines lose efficeincy at higher altitude as the air is thinner. If the air at the top of your hill is 0.0000001% thinner than at the bottom, this needs to be taken into account in your calculation, although the effect could be partially cancelled out by the air being fractionally cooler at altitude in the case of a diesel engine! The correlation of humidity and altitude also needs to be considered, as does the local meteorological microclimate and the prevailing wind direction.
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