Eco-modder makes FE presentation to Sierra Club
 

I was the guest speaker at the local Sierra Club chapter's monthly meeting today. I borrowed heavily from 100+ tips and even used a few members' fuel log graphs. I recorded the presentation, but unfortunately the camera was made by sony and isn't doing the god damn thing it's fcking supposed to. I feel confident I did pretty well, and I at least did better that I expected of myself. Everyone really enjoyed it. I'll post the video later.

Hey, congrats, Will!

From the Sierra club synopsis of the meeting...

Looking forward to seeing the vid, if you can get that $(%(- &#&^$ piece of &#^$ to work!

Out of curiosity, whose logs did you use?

Heh heh good question Pale. Yours.

After of hours of wrestling with my mother's bullsh!t sony DV camera, I finally gave up and borrowed a friend's panasonic. The SONY camera didn't even work with SONY vegas. I don't buy anything sony anyway, but this firms my position up to all out boycott. Here's the link, thousands of dropped frames and all. Thank you sony.
Ecomodders who were mentioned / deserve credit as sources for my presentation:

Ernie Rogers - mentioned your whitepaper
CarloSW2/cfg83 - used your used vs. new car thing as a springboard for mine
dcb - Promoted the Guino
azraelswrd - used your "5 pillars of efficiency"
MetroMPG - Used your block heater info page, and actually gave a link to it

As for the graphs I used, I plucked these from the vine pretty quickly, so I didn't really take too much preference - I was looking for people who had quite a few entries and gave a good cross section of typical cars with really nice mileage, and a couple of "extreme" examples to show off. I do have to say that I do have a crush on Pale's graph. Graphs I used in order of appearance (If you don't recognize your own):
Funny's Rolling Lemon (02 Corolla)
99CamryPilot's Energizer Bunny (99 Camry)
McTimson's Turkel (93 Tercel) - Support local drivers! :)
PaleMelanesian's PaleCivic (96 Civic)
Big Dave's The Red Baron (00 F-350)
suchy21's The Ranger (93 Ranger)
SVOBoy's VeganPowa! (early 90's frankenstein) - yes, I called you lazy :p
MetroMPG's Blackfly (98 Metro/Firefly)

There are a few things I thought I should've stressed more, and things I should've stressed less. I'm open to any criticism, but keep in mind I don't often speak publicly, had never done anything like this before, and don't have any plans to do it again (so far). Enjoy - it's a long video, and I understand if it's TL/DW.

Listening to your talk now.

Please understand, I'm trying to give some constructive criticism, not knocking anything you did. That said,

- Try to trim it down and hit the points faster. I think your audience will retain the information better that way.

- Try to sound more confident. You know this stuff, and you're presenting new information to them.

(I'm making a couple updates to my talk based on yours. The bicycle analogy for DWL is great.)

still listening...

Thanks for the feedback!

There was a 60-something there that has been doing what we call "hypermiling" for 25 years who approached me after the presentation. He said that I might want to be careful in how I prescribed EOC in neutral, because he's had manual cars that didn't even like that - they wouldn't pop start. I never made EXPLICIT mention of going out to an empty parking lot and trying a few things out before taking them on the road, and I think that was a very important point I missed. There are a few things I wish I should've driven home harder and more concisely, or mentioned at all, but eh what are you going to do. I'm satisfied overhearing people talk about how much they enjoyed this month's meeting. I think I will do better if I end up speaking like this again - I'm surprised how comfortable I was in contrast to how nervous I was while preparing.

That's another good point. I'm adding a note about "try this in a parking lot first" on my notes. I'm at work, so listening in the background. It'll take me a little while longer to finish.

I'm glad you uploaded the video anyway

I agree. The missed frames do not detract from the content. I do wish the video was at a different angle so we could see the screen.

Finished, and it does sound like you got a positive response. Good work.

Thanks for the mention with my gaslog.

Some of my earlier criticisms worked out in the end. You did fine. It took you a few minutes to warm up is all.

I second that, as my English speaking is rather poor... I may try to decrypt you later (don't worry I also have difficulties to decrypt BBC news ;) but I may not have enough time during next weeks and I don't have enough space to save the video on my disk :(

Are your slides available anywhere ?

Denis.

attachment filesize FTL. Even with intense compression (looks like crap, but you still get the point) I managed to narrow it down to a 250kb PDF. Could we bump that size limit up temporarily for this? Admins?

bump

Will, e-mail me the file and I'll post it on the server. darin at EM

http://ecomodder.com/forum/images/si...esentation.pdf

Thank you both.

Whoops - that PDF link was wrong. I just fixed it.

I know this is quite a bump...but this presentation is amazing.

I am planning to give a vehicle-efficiency presentation for Earth Day in April. I need to educate my fellow college students about not driving like buffoons. I didn't see any other presentation threads, so I figured I'd ask advice here. Any tips for a much more abbreviated presentation, tailored mainly to college students? Unfortunately, I only have 15 minutes.

Any objections if I base some of my presentation off of this presentation, the 100+ hypermiling tips, 65+ ecomod tips and some forum vehicle info and pictures?
I will reference as necessary.

I'm actually also doing a presentation sometime in May. Can I steal from you?

No objections about using EM's stuff. (With the usual disclaimers about safety first & being considerate behind the wheel.)

Can't speak for Will about stealing his stuff though. :)

Aw thanks, mister. My advice is to make sure you know your stuff for when you get know-it-alls, because people are going to want to make a dialog out of your presentation. Some people might actually know her/his stuff, but then there will always be someone who disagrees that it will save gas to turn your car off at stop lights. Try to keep safety the only thing up to someone's interpretation. Dialog isn't necessarily bad, just make sure you leave enough time for yourself to get the main points out, especially those that people probably hadn't thought of. For example, if your tires are inflated properly, you should be able to turn your engine off at the top of the hill on the approach to the Lincoln tunnel and not turn it on until you get to the toll booths. Stuff like that where traffic is moving so slowly will save so much wasted gas and emissions (that's 20 minutes of idling eliminated). Brakes might stiffen though so another pillar of advice I'll give you is to be mindful of the exceptions. I like to divide my presentation into what you can ideally do (engine-off coast with a 5 speed transmission) versus what people can or will be willing to do. Don't just tell people to turn their car off and coast in neutral - try to give a nice tiered approach. Give something that beginners can do to improve, and also something for the more advanced people, and always advise trying new techniques in an empty parking lot or road to get comfortable with things like stiff brakes. Doing anything like this properly could make you more excited to drive (to see the results of your increased effort to save gas), more aware of your surroundings, and a safer, more defensive driver.

good luck and take video!

Questions:

Pg 9 "cruise control is a crutch"? For most people (and even me on long drives) cc = better fe

Pg 11 "brake hard" :confused: Oooooooh, power brakes might get a hard pedal with engine off.

Thanks for the input! Yes, I plan to provide a full disclaimer for the methods and mods discussed (safety, local law, etc). Since I'm still rather new to this forum, I'm 'stuck' with my automatic Vibe, and I'll be pressed for time, I will mostly focus on the things I've learned with my car. (Someday I'd like to SEE some of you folks in manuals in action to get a better feel for some things). But I think I'll be able to take questions in stride. Pictures will also help out. Luckily, many in this forum do well with visual documentation.

Going to focus on:
Why bother? Why care? (Money savings, pollution, time at the pump, observant driver, etc.)
Knocking off jackrabbit starts and stops
Anticipating traffic lights
Appropriate highway speeds
Summer/Winter
General road rules
ScanGauge or other FE instrumentation
Tires
Tips for automatics (most college students I would say)
Basic mods like grill blocks, block heaters, removals (roof rack, dead bodies in the trunk).
Advanced mods like engine swaps, kammbacks, boat tails, truck aero caps.
Others??

Nice presentation Wonderboy. It gave a nice outline of all the hypermiling and ecomodding techniques.

You might have a tough time fitting what you already listed in 15 minutes!

I agree, the better option I think is to encourage curiosity, then, have resources on offer (i.e. link to website, handouts covering possibilities and where to get information).

I wouldn't be here writing this post, or even looking at fuel economy if it wasn't for something on this website in my searching for something unrelated.

I was actually looking to make a data logger of speed, etc. for law enforcement related purposes (cop says I was going X when I can prove I wasn't as an example).

Finding as much information on fuel economy as I have - has encouraged my curiosity, and replaced the idea of a data logger (though could easily be added).

Some of those points will probably just turn into short bullet points, I'm guessing.
Which points do you all think are vital? Which do you think will spark the curious folks to learn more?

1. Why bother? Why care?
Money savings
Pollution
Time at the pump
Observant driver
2. What to do first?
Adjust nut behind wheel
Tire inflation
ScanGauge or other FE instrumentation
3. General road rules
Kill the jackrabbit
Anticipating traffic lights
Highway tips (if time)
4. Summer/Winter Tips
5. Tips for automatics (or specify a couple differences between MT and AT)
6. Basic mods like grill blocks, block heaters, removals (roof rack, dead bodies in the trunk).
Lots of visual examples (less time explaining)
7. Advanced mods like engine swaps, kammbacks, boat tails, truck aero caps.
A few visual examples.
8. Resources and References.

And explain these aren't geek modifications, but that they are being done on many recent cars by just about every car manufacturer.

Excluding removing the dead bodies that is. :D


Eco-modding just takes it a step further to a level that the car manufacturer doesn't dare to do, as 1 of their cars might one day be driven through Death Valley in summer, loaded to the brim and towing a big caravan.

You might be interested in researching a persuasive speech format called Monroe's Motivated Sequence. It depends on your audience. If you're speaking to people who are already interested in fuel efficiency, you can get away with getting right to the information. However, if you're speaking to the average consumer, you have a little more work to do.

The basic premise is that before you can tell someone what to do to, you need to tell them why they need to do it. You create a need step (most likely by discussing rising gas prices, wasted energy, emissions, economics etc...something that is easily relatable) and by the end the audience is asking YOU: 'what can I do!?', rather then you trying to convince them.

When done right, this is an extremely effective method of presenting to an audience that understands the implications of your topic, but simply is not as enthusiastic as you are.

In past presentations (non-hypermiling) I've made the mistake of getting too detailed with information, and unfortunately no matter how insightful the presentation may be, you usually lose the attention of the audience.

Hope this has helped.

Looking back on it, I probably misused the word crutch and meant "cruise control: a valuable tool for the lead footed" If you can't be attentive enough to drive the whole thing with your foot, then it is indeed better to tell cruise control to keep you at 55-60 than at 65-75 if your only concern is not wanting to think about or constantly move your foot for a long haul. I know I don't have to tell you this Frankly... just a clarification.

the "brake hard" thing: I don't remember that being in reference to when the engine is off, although it is indeed important to remember that you need to push harder during EOC, and to be cautious if you are applying the brakes DURING a bump start where a surge of force is liable to be applied to the brakes due to the restored brake assist vacuum.

What I believe I meant by "brake hard" was a technique I use in certain situations that I believe is also mentioned in EM's "official" list of techniques. For instance, I may be coming up on another car, an obstacle, a traffic light that is likely to clear out in a perceived amount of time. If I'm a certain distance away with no one behind me, it's sometimes better to apply brakes more forcefully than "normal" or gracefully. The reason for this is that if I'm EOCing (I probably am at most given points), the hard application of the brakes buys more time for the obstacle ahead to clear out while still conserving enough momentum to bump start. So what I do is quickly brake down to a speed that I feel will carry me THROUGH the obstacle for a decent distance while giving the obstacle the maximum amount of time possible to clear out. My working theory is that graceful braking would carry me closer to the obstacle faster, increasing my likelihood of being forced to stop. Sometimes the obstacle clears out faster than expected and you think "shucks, I wish I didn't waste all that momentum I just had a second ago", and other times I wish I'd crept slower, but I think the bell curve of these situations is covered well with what I called the "brake hard" technique.


SCIENCE!

Yes, when I'm droning along for 7 hours through the flats, I don't want to be troubled to wedge my foot in there somehow when the cc will do virtually the same thing. Is it an attentiveness deficit problem after that amount of time? Conditions... Actually the coupe doesn't have cc but I sure would like to have one or better yet, a throttle lock.

I doubt I'd ever recommend to a bunch of newbies "brake hard"- it's ripe for misinterpretation and that's how the clods are driving now during their Stoplight Gran Prix.

I'm having a very hard time trying to match the fuel consumption that the CC is returning effortlessly.

euromodder, if you are living in a flat country then the cc will give you something hard to beat excepting by using P&G.

When using a steady speed, "hang time" is a great tool. After the speed is stabilized, just release a very little the accelerator : the consumption lowers but not the speed. You may repeat this until the speed lowers. I can do this 2 or 3 times on my wife's car before the speed lowers by 1-3km/h. At the same time the consumption lowers by 5-15% :)

When you are riding in such an optimized position then a simple car passing you or a very light uphill will make you slow down. You have to accept to continue your ride at a lower speed so you will not have the cc default : having to reaccelerate as soon as it looses some speed. Reaccelerate only other time and use downhills if any to do so.

Have fun,

Denis.

Update

I've been working on my presentation. It's rather broad and obviously doesn't cover everything, but I think it'll get across some good points.

Lets see if this slideshare works.

I can see how that might cause misinterpretation. The same message can be conveyed by saying: predict, anticipate and slow down early.

The problem is audience variation. Tell a group of ecodrivers to brake hard, and it means cut losses by scrubbing off excess momentum. Tell the same thing to someone who treats is like ^ a race, and the result is totally different.

In my opinion, the best approach is to tell drivers to actively seek information. If they actually follow suit, they'll naturally be looking for yellow lights and brake lights. Then they'll realize how tailgating seriously hinders one's ability to gather said information (and causes abrupt stops). Same result, different approach.

TheMarkofPolo - I checked out your sideshow. I think you got the basics down. You're right to avoid getting too complicated; it's an easy way to lose the audience. My one criticism is that, although you covered the money saving aspect, I don't think you explained just how easy it is. Most ecodriving tactics don't waste time, but I suspect that the opposite is sometimes assumed.

Almost forgot: Have you given the presentation yet? If not, I may have some materials of interest for you from a very interesting public presentation course I took.

Criticism taken into consideration. I'll see how I can squeeze that in, or simply talk about it. (I dislike reading everything from a slide.)

I'll be giving the presentation next week, so I have some time.

Updated Presentation. I'll still be hard-pressed to fit it into 15-20 minutes, but that limit is only a goal. I need to maintain attention and allow for folks coming to/from classes.

Excellent, good luck with it. Let us know how it goes. Any chance of a video?

If you can get even a few more drivers to decide to become more anticipatory about traffic - more actively thinking about their driving inputs - then I'd say you will have succeeded.

Nice work - good luck with the presentation.

I'm giving one in late May. Might steal some of your ideas :P

I'm glad my fiance is honest. After running the presentation by her once, she found it dry at times. Fixed the kinks and came in strong today. I kept it light-hearted and a little funny to hold interest.

I gave the presentation among Sustainability group members and collegiate passersby. They seemed to enjoy it and hopefully they'll be curious enough to visit this website.
Anyway, HERE it is.

MetroMPG: repost, reuse, recycle the presentation as you see fit.

This is the basis for spreading the news of efficient driving practices.

Kudos to you for your initiative and creative spirit!!!