What Would You Teach In A Class on Driving Efficiency?

[Tango Charlie]

It is possible that I could be given the opportunity to teach a short 'Wednesday Night Workshop' on driving efficiency at my church. I'd like some input as I develop the curriculum.
Givens:
- Potential 'students' are not full-on ecomodding freaks like us. More like mildly interested normal people.
- Time is limited to four weekly sessions of an hour and half each.
- Probably a pretty small class size, likely less than ten.

So, what main points would you try to get across?

Would you concentrate on driving techniques, aka "tightening the nut behind the wheel", or vehicle modifications? Or a combination of both? 20/80? 50/50? 70/30?

Which of the 100+ Hypermiling Tips and/or 65+ Efficiency Mods would you cover?

Thoughts on how to effectively get the students to "drink the cool-aid"?

[Cd]

What age group ?
If it's teenagers, tell them to floor it, and always try and race to the stoplight.
They will do the opposite of what you tell them.
:-)

[gone-ot]

...number 1 rule of speaking: "...speaker, KNOW the audience..."

...ask your audience this quesion: "Why do you want to know about driving economically?" and, then tailor your (known) "nut-adjustment" driving skills/tricks to their answers.

...obviously, "cost of gas," will be an answer, but that's NOT a reason, it's really just the cause behind the real reason--to SAVE MONEY while STILL being able to drive anywhere at any time as they did before. Now, THAT'S a "reason."

[Frank Lee]

I would say "crack open that Owner's Manual" because it appears about 1% of us have actually done that. The Owner's Manual should say to air the tires, start it and drive straight off, use the lowest grade gas, and change fluids at reasonable intervals *note not everyone is in severe service mode either*

[SentraSE-R]

I'd divide it into four logical topics. My choices would be:

Week 1 - Shepherding/conserving resources and saving money.
A. America's energy situation. Dependent on unfriendly world powers, unable to produce a fraction of our needs. 19 mpg fleet v. need for 45 mpg to be independent, Cost savings for typical car with 25% over EPA, etc.
B. Record oil company profits, hazards, environmental pollution, etc. related to oil production and consumption.
C. The good book says...
D. ...

Week 2 - Speed kills.
A. Safety. Fatalities/serious injuries increase disproportionally to speed.
B. Energy needs rise as the square of velocity.
C. Steady speed fuel consumption plotted against velocity
D. ...

Week 3 - Conserving momentum.
A. Jackrabbits v. tortoise at the stoplight drags
B. Why you shouldn't have your foot on the gas half a block from a red light.
C. Physics/work of moving a 3500 lb. vehicle from a stop (5 mpg v. coasting through a light at 60 mpg).
D. ...

Week 4 - Miscellany.
A. Auto maintenance. Tire pressures, trouble codes, cold engine starts, other maintenance linked to benefits of hypermiling.
B. Driving techniques for energy conservation
C. Vehicle modifications for EC
D. ...

[Frank Lee]

That's all well and good but I fear most motorists- being quite unlike us- aren't that interested and will fall asleep rather early on. Best to get the big chunks out there right away and if anyone is still awake after that, one can go into more detail.

[user removed]

Northern Indiana is tough for mileage. A church group probably contains a lot of automatic transmission drivers.

If they have a garage they should use it for the cars, especially in that severe climate.

If possible do not run the engine to warm up the car, scrape the ice and start and go to get warm up times to a minimum.

Coast down to forced stops instead of severe braking. Explain the magic of DFCO, that you can actually have the car moving and use no fuel.

Discourage speeding and recommend high tire inflation without going to any excess that would make winter driving dangerous.

They have a week between sessions to see the results. Get feedback from the drivers that see a significant improvement and explain that it is not just about saving money but also about saving the sir we breathe and the greater amount of money you have to earn to buy each gallon of fuel.

Find your enthusiastic students that actually notice a difference and see if they might even give you actual numbers on fuel saved.

Make it fun with a little competition without letting it get to serious, and then see how week one goes, before you get into to much advanced stuff that might loose their attention.

regards
Mech

[Tango Charlie]

Cd, that made me laugh! Thanks!

Old Tele Man; Thanks for the input. I also think that having plenty of dialog in the class would be a good thing.

SentraSE-R; Oh my. Like Frank Lee said, I think most would fall asleep on me if I spend 90 minutes on America's energy situation and record oil company profits. I like some of your other ideas, though. Like week 3 and 4 items. Thanks!

Old Mechanic; oooh, I like the way you think. A little homework might be just the thing. A little friendly competition would be fun. I'd probably plot it as percent over EPA. I agree that it should be kept simple at least the first couple weeks. I figured I'd start with How To Calculate Your MPG, including topping off at the same pump for repeatability, etc.

[t vago]

Originally Posted by SentraSE-R

I'd divide it into four logical topics.

Week 1 of that program would turn me off, right there.

I'd rather go with doing a simple thought experiment. Suppose that one drives 500 miles a month. Then, suppose that one pays $75 per month for $3.00/gallon gas to drive that 500 miles. That would be an average fuel economy of 20 MPG. Then, suppose that one could instead pay $60 to drive that exact same 500 miles as before, merely by changing their driving habits. That would be an average 25 MPG. That's $15 saved just by changing driving habits, right there.

Then note that gas prices are rising, and do the same thought experiment with $5.00/gallon gas.

Then, go into the techniques and preventive maintenance.

[Frank Lee]

As Gasoline Prices Rise, Alliance to Save Energy Urges Drivers To Be More Fuel Efficient, Take '6° Challenge' As Gasoline Prices Rise | Alliance to Save Energy

Here's a brief yet fairly complete outline, already done.

And a website

http://drivesmarterchallenge.org/