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| Can I go faster economically...; ..or does slow and steady still win the race? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 18 2012, 02:11 PM (930 Views) | |
| lafter | Jan 18 2012, 02:11 PM Post #1 |
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Hmmm .. I've never really done the math. When I drive the speed limit or under ... coast a lot and take off slow .. I get 85mpg (probably only 80 in the winter) & it takes me 90 min to get to work. When I speed a constant 10mph over the PSL .. and do 70-90 on the interstate (depending on traffic) I get 60mpg (55mpg right now in cold weather) & it takes me 50 min to get to work. Can someone smart crunch them numbers for me? |
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| nerys | Jan 20 2012, 04:25 AM Post #2 |
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Grr
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how many miles? time is not useful without the distance. what your describing is not possible no matter the distance. you said 90 minutes and 50 minutes. that is LITERALLY a few minutes shy of ONE HALF the time. the only way you can cut your time by that much is to "DOUBLE" your average speed. thats simply not possible you would have to be hitting triple digit max speeds to do that. thats why I wanted you to measure it. I bet its a lot more "in your head" than reality (no insult intended) my dad have the same problem till he actually "clocked" himself. |
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| lafter | Jan 25 2012, 11:47 AM Post #3 |
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Ok I have some solid numbers for you. The commute to my office is 45miles one way taking the fast roads & 47miles one way taking the slow roads. I consider that a 100mile/day commute. Taking the fast roads .. mostly interstate with a psl of 65mph it takes me 50-60 mins to make the trip .. depending on traffic.. I am averaging 55mpg (60mpg in the summer) and get up to speeds of 90mph.. I am typically in the fast lane keeping up with traffic. Taking the slow roads with mostly a psl of 45-55mph it takes me 75-90 mins to make the trip .. depending on traffic... for me to get 85mpg I never go faster then 55mph and stay in the slow lane trying to conserve fuel (I don't claim to be good at it like most people here are) Traffic around here tends to move faster in the morning. |
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| nerys | Jan 25 2012, 12:35 PM Post #4 |
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Grr
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lafter. PLEASE understand I am trying to help so do NOT construe this as me saying your lying. if your actually cruising at 90mph for any significant amount of time your average speed will be higher ..... "Most of post deleted as it was based on the assumption you were driving a metro :-)" .....my first suggestion is to take the "fast" route and simply do not go so fast. if your truly getting 60mpg maxing at 90mph then maxing at 65mph will have almost "ZERO" impact on your travel time (since by your numbers you only doing 90 for a few minutes tops and I mean a few as in under 5-10 minutes tops) but will have a HUGE impact on your fuel economy. btw the difference between 60mpg and 85mpg for you is over $600 a year minimum. that is a lot of cash. --------------- WOHHHH their horsey. I just realized a BIG mistake that DOES explain your average speed and MPG values. your not driving a metro :-) your driving an insight !!! WOW huge huge difference. your getting at ton of power back from REGEN so your 47mile path IS a ton of stop and go resulting in lots of BATTERY USAGE which explains the 85mpg. OK now I am starting to understand. My suggestions. take the "high speed" 45mile route but slow down. there is flat out NO REASON for you to go 90mph. My comments on that remain as stated. your doing nothing but burning gas going 90mph your saving ZERO time for all intents and purposes (minutes if not SECONDS per commute) just slow down to the PSL and you will reap big savings but almost ZERO loss in time. don't compare the 45m route to the 47m route. compare the 45m route at 90mph max and the same 45m route at PSL speeds. I think you will be amazed at how TINY the difference is. Edited by nerys, Jan 25 2012, 12:46 PM.
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| lafter | Jan 25 2012, 01:13 PM Post #5 |
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lol .. sure it does.
I never said I rode in stop and go traffic .. well most of the time anyway.
That sounds about right ..I was guessing I averaged 40mph
lol .. sorry I don't know how fast I go every mile of the trip .. don't get all caught up in that.
That sounds about right .. I always figure on averaging 50mph on any trip I take.
I never said I could... I said I get up to speeds of 90mph depending on traffic .. your getting side tracked again.
Nope & Nope .. the first 25min of my commute are all country back roads and 3 small towns .. then I hit the old highway or the interstate for the rest of it.
lol ... your getting side tracked again .. I asked for help doing some math stats .. that has nothing to do with you being able to visualize every mile I travel every day .. So lets just assume that all the numbers are accurate and get down to stats. here are the numbers again 45miles = 60mpg/summer and takes 50-60min 47miles = 85mpg/summer and takes 75-90min What I was looking for is a mpg/time break down ... 3mph=4min of my time=$.25 (assuming gas =$4/gallon) sort of thing. Its completely cool if you don't want to or cant break down numbers like that. I personally cant. Edited by lafter, Jan 25 2012, 01:15 PM.
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| nerys | Jan 25 2012, 03:51 PM Post #6 |
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Grr
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again some of that was on the (false) assumption we were talking about a metro. It being an insight changes EVERYTHING. "I never said I rode in stop and go traffic .. well most of the time anyway" actually yes you did. your data says you do. 85mpg on a 47mile commute with an average speed of 34mph means your in stop and go traffic. :-) or something really close to it :-) "Its completely cool if you don't want to or cant break down numbers like that. I personally can" I did. I calc'd your average speeds for you. with those values you can now figure out anything you want. I even did the year total for you. a little over $600 in gas savings if you take the long way. but I agreed the $600 is not worth the dramatically increased time it would consume going the slow way. with that said my next objective was to save you some cash without losing so much time. IE make the cash savings larger than the time lost and therefore "worth" it :-) "I never said I could... I said I get up to speeds of 90mph depending on traffic .. your getting side tracked again." nope right no tracker where "I" want to me :-) hehe 90mph and 60mpg do not compute under any conditions except for the 90mph part being VERY VERY SHORT don't matter what car you drive (though the insight is about the slipperiest car you can buy right alongside the EV1 with a drool worthy COD) ie my point was if you changed nothing "except" stopped going 90mph you would increase you trip time buy a nearly unmeasurable amount (one of your objectives) but on the other hand recoup a measurable improvement in fuel economy. IE if your getting 60mpg with spurts to 90mph I bet you could get closer to 70mpg with a miniscule increase in travel time (as in under 5 minutes possibly) which "would" be worth the fuel savings since you can't really "use" that extra 5 minutes twice a day for anything tangible. 30 minutes OH YEAH you can use that time. big time. but 5 minutes. not so relevant anymore and the savings become more "desirable" then. initially when you said that time difference I had assumed "same route" different speeds which made no sense. now that I know your using 2 routes its understandable now. the issue is not your speed the issue is your second route. IE don't use that route :-) Just lower your speed on the highway portion of the "faster" route. to get you a dollars break down of this new method I need a time line for the "fast" route at "normal" (ie PSL) speeds. to see if its better to save the gas or save the time. for your original route I already did the math for you. 49/34 mph average speed savings over $600 at 34mph average but not worth the dramatically increased timespan spent behind the wheel. even I think a month is worth more than $600 :-) |
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| nerys | Jan 25 2012, 03:59 PM Post #7 |
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Grr
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AHHH wait one more correction. I did give you the numbers. and then I deleted them when I edited my post to remove all the stuff that was irrelevant because it was based on metro values. sorry my bad. on the data you gave me your average time for the "fast" route is 55minutes your average time for the "slow" route is 82 minutes. your average speed comes to 49.09mph (fast) and 34.39mph (slow) your fuel savings (assuming 40k a year) using 60mpg for fast and 85mpg for slow (you provided those) is about $2166 fast route and $1529 slow route assuming $3.25 a gallon average. so your savings going slow route is $637 per year. not enough to justify an extra month behind the wheel. your estimated time behind the wheel extra (assuming 5 days a week) is roughly 9.75 days. so not a month but still I don't know if I would want to spend an extra 10 days in the car for $600 at my pay rate after taxes thats about $1904 now if I could not "actually earn" $1904 with that time it might be worth it (for me specifically) to say screw it and put the 234 hours into the car since now I can listen to more podcasts and audio books. but 27 minutes on "each side" of my commute is a LOT OF TIME. I could sleep in almost an extra half an hour or stay up a half an hour later at night "AND" get home an extra half an hour early. IE it could "add" 1 hour to each of my evenings of me/family time. I think I would rather have the 1 hour extra in the evening 260 times a year than have the $600 in my pocket. so my vote is skip the second route and just slow down a little on the first route. |
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| lafter | Jan 25 2012, 04:28 PM Post #8 |
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Nice work! .. lets add some more numbers to this equation. The interstate costs $1 each way .. so $10 a week... but that is my fastest option... I have even made the trip in 45min on very rare occasions. I can average 65-70mpg on the old highway doing my standard 10mph over the speed limit .. so max 65mph. It takes 60-70 min driving fast on the old highway. I have never driven slow on the interstate with any vehicle .. I figure I'm paying to speed
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| nerys | Jan 25 2012, 05:37 PM Post #9 |
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Grr
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well try not speeding one day and see what your fuel economy is. maybe you will save more than a dollar just in fuel (not likely at these mpg's) but you never know. not worth speeding on the other path since speed is not the issue. your stops are the issue and speeding will more than likely make those worse not better. old highway. is that route 2 or a old version of route 1? if old version of route one how long does THAT route take you if you go the PSL ? the extra is worth it for an extra 5-10 minutes travel time speeding on the old highway BUT the first ticket you get will eat up a couple years worth of savings. a decades worth if it effects your insurance :-) Edited by nerys, Jan 25 2012, 05:40 PM.
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| lafter | Jan 25 2012, 10:58 PM Post #10 |
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lol .. that's like taking you ball and going home cus no one picked you to play in the first round. |
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| lafter | Jan 25 2012, 11:00 PM Post #11 |
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The old highway is a combination of rt13 and rt9 |
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| nerys | Jan 25 2012, 11:55 PM Post #12 |
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Grr
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No. route 1 equals the 45mile high speed route route 2 equals the 47mile slow speed route is this "old" highway one of those or a MOD of one of those? |
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| lafter | Jan 26 2012, 08:16 AM Post #13 |
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ahh .. gotcha. route 1 = 45mile interstate .. the road is called rt1 route 2 = 47mile old highway .. that's mostly rt13 (2 lane highway from the 70's) with a little of the real old highway rt9 (1 lane highway from the 40's) |
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| lafter | Jan 26 2012, 12:02 PM Post #14 |
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Ok .. I tried to do some math .. so if my numbers are all wrong don't crucify me. It makes me sad when I see it on paper how much of my life is spent in a car driving to work ![]() I am basing these figures off of winter mpg with gas price of $4/g here are the three figures I am using ... I rounded numbers for convenience 55mpg=100min/90miles @ $4/gal +$2(tolls) 65mpg=120min/90miles @ $4/gal 80mpg=150min/90miles @ $4/gal Sooooo .. with them numbers I came up with with these sad stats. 55mpg = $8.56 per day + 100min (1.6hrs) 55mpg = $42.8 per week + 500min (8.3hrs) 55mpg = $171.2 per month + 2000min (33.3hrs) 55mpg = $2054.4 per year + 24000min (400hrs) 65mpg = $5.52 per day + 120min (2hrs) 65mpg = $27.06 per week + 600min (10hrs) 65mpg = $108.24 per month + 2400min (40hrs) 65mpg = $1298.88 per year + 28800min (480hrs) 80mpg = $4.5 per day + 150min (2.5hrs) 80mpg = $22.5 per week + 750min (12.5hrs) 80mpg = $90 per month + 3000min (50hrs) 80mpg = $1080 per year + 36000min (600hrs) I was better off not knowing how much time I spent commuting. |
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| Coche Blanco | Jan 26 2012, 01:06 PM Post #15 |
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Troll Certified
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Is it possible to move closer? I know it sounds drastic, but it can really help your quality of life. More sleep, and less time driving never hurt anyone. |
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