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No this isn't about tailgaiting. Rather, I want to share the results from a crude experiment on drafting vs. fuel economy.
I did a little experiment. It was pretty windy and cold in Michigan yesterday. The wind was blowing at at least 25 mph from the North. As I was driving to work, I was playing around with the EDU on my '95 Aero (Auto w/ 45k miles) and was surprised to see inst. mpg hovering at 30-32 mpg. I was travelling with a 25 mph tail wind, southbound on I-75 going 70 mph. I normally average 26 - 28 mpg in this kind of cold weather. I didn't expect to see that much impact wind/aerodynamics had on the gas mileage. So going back home, now I'm going against the wind, I checked and the mpg was down to 21 - 23 mpg doing 70 mph. Then, as I was coming up on a Econoline van, my mpg started increasing. When I maintained about 2 car lengths (I was somewhat tailgating, but tried to get an affect of 'drafting'.) to see the difference, I was surprised to see 28 - 30mpg. Then I changed to an open lane and sure enough the mpg went back down to 21-23 mpg. This morning, the wind had died down. I was tracking 26 - 28 mpg doing 70mph on my EDU, just like before. Then, a F250 superduty truck passed me at around 80 mph. I pulled in behind him and stayed about 2 car lengths back (I don't have the guts to draft any closer than that doing 80). A quick glance down to EDU showed same 26 - 28 mph. Normally, without drafting, I only get around 20 - 22 mpg at 80 mph.
I don't know how accurate EDU calculations are, but my little crude experiment shows a surprisingly high dependency of mpg vs. aerodynamics. And no, I will not recommend anyone to 'draft' in order to save a few mpg. But I will advocate against driving faster than necessary and legal speed limits if you want to conserve some gas :)
James from Michigan...
posted by 12.47.22...
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