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Originally Posted by beardedproductions
About once a month I think "Man I could save a lot of money on gas if I delivered with a scooter. And then I remember I'd have to balance 4 bags at once while driving it. Ah well. I can dream.
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In addition to bike delivery solutions like saddle bags/front mounted trays/racks that I would imagine are more pervasive than cars in big cities, an idea comes to me when thinking about alternatives to gas cars here, when all the deliveries are going to be local: Electric car. Depending on how many miles you typically travel during a shift, and how long you plan to make deliveries your source of income, going all electric might be an economical decision as well.
As for improving your car, it really is a bummer that you have an auto, because most of the advantage you can get in a city setting is through P&G. There is absolutely no uneven tread wear nor traction reduction when pumping your tires up, and in fact I put mine to 50psi when my sidewall says 44, but 44 or whatever your tires' sidewall says maximum will suffice. Basically, as thatguitarguy said, the key to efficient city driving is touching any of your pedals as little as possible. The best way to accomplish this is P&G, you have an auto so like others said I wouldn't recommend P&G although if you know of lights that regularly take a bit of time to change, I think it's worth shifting to neutral - I've found driving the automatics my family has (subaru forester & toyota tundra), idle speed goes down and you can tell it's not constantly "trying" to move forward when in Neutral. I also coast in neutral with the engine on on very long stretches (long hills), but other than in these two scenarios, I keep it in drive, and try my best to achieve a quasi pulse and glide in drive. Aero mods have been very effective in my 98 Civic EX (~43-44mpg to ~48-50mpg in the summer), but you need to do a lot of 40+mph travel to see the benefits of aero mods.
The best/easiest thing you can do aside from driving habits in a city setting is reduce as much vehicle weight as possible and keep the tires pumped to max sidewall rating so that when you are stuck in a stop and go situation, it will cost the engine as little energy to get the car moving as possible. Low rolling resistance tires are a big help too if you can find them on craigslist or have money to spend on new ones, but unless you have giant knobby jeep tires, won't afford you nearly as much benefit as driving techniques.
Good luck and welcome to EM!
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