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Old 05-29-2019, 02:29 PM   #29 (permalink)
LeanBurn
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Location: Southern Alberta, Canada
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Here's a link to the article by Adrienne Tanner which ran 7 hrs ago:

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/tops...1xQ?li=AAqARMz

snip"

This has everything to do with the free market,” says Marcus Sabathil, a Maple-Ridge furniture maker who runs a van for his business.

Sabathil is an “ecomodder” a back-yard engineer who counters high fuel prices by modifying his vehicles to improve fuel efficiency. About nine years ago, when prices soared over $1 per litre, which seemed astronomical at the time, Sabathil bought a used hybridcar for trips that didn’t require much carrying capacity. He then eco-modified his van to improve fuel efficiency. He designed aerodynamic coverings called fairings for the vehicle, changed out the factory hubcaps for ones that were flat and blocked the grill as much as he could, depending on the weather. “There’s a lot you can do. I actually cut my fuel consumption almost in half.”

Recently, rising gas prices prompted Sabathil to go a step further. His wife commutes 45 km a day in a Prius hybrid and noticed her gas bills climbing from about $55 to $75 a week. So Sabathil modified her car, too, improving the mileage by 36 per cent. He recognizes his ecomodder hobby is unlikely to catch on with most people and says vehicle manufacturers should be forced to set lower consumption targets, or nothing will change. But the answer is certainly not another pipeline, he adds. “Gas prices will continue to rise regardless; we need to conserve.”

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