Saving fuel with careful driving

The car we use for hypermiling - a 1300kg 1600cc turbo-diesel

Apologies for not blogging much on hypermiling for quite some time.
As I mentioned in my last post, I don't drive much, having  moved my workplace during an internal re-organisation in the company I work for.
This has left me with a one mile cycle to work, rather than a twenty-five mile (each way) drive.
Saving fuel with careful driving isn't the entire answer, but it is easy enough to do, and makes a real difference, at least until better transport solutions emerge in the future.

We still use our car for some journeys, particularly the longer ones.
Recently I made three long-ish journeys in our car, and it is these that I will share with you now.

Car (Automobile) Sharing (Pooling) - Half the Work, Half the Congestion!

We have recently started car (automobile) sharing when my daughter goes to her dancing lessons.
There is another family whose daughter also goes, and they live about half a mile from us (about 800 metres/meters).

Top tips for improving your gas mileage

These are all based on "official" tips from the US Department of Energy

Fuel consumption and speed - some solid data

It is easy to say that fuel usage increases with speed, and that wind drag is the major increasing factor.
But just how great is the effect?
Is it the same for all vehicles?
Does driving slower always save fuel?

Lets look at some hard data: page 29 in  Chapter 4 of Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 30 - 2011, published by the The Center for Transportation Analysis at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory gives some figures for a variety of vehicles sold in the USA. Most of the vehicles reach their best economy at either 50 or 55 mph, with some of the physically larger cars better at lower speeds than that, and just one (the Toyota Celica - a reasonably aerodynamic sports coupe) being most efficient at 60 mph.

If that link is unavailable, then try here, which is a summary of the various data from the same source.
Just pick out the data list you think is the most relevant for you needs.
They all point to pretty much the same conclusions, whichever you pick.

Some important conclusions can be drawn, whatever type of automobile you drive, and whichever data source you choose: