You will notice how prices of goods and services go up when fuel prices go up. This is because fuel is an integral part of the supply and value chains. Thus prices of goods and services go up in trying to compensate for fuel costs incurred. This shows that fuel costs affect businesses, startups, business people, entrepreneurs, and also their customers. It is important to figure out how best fuel costs can be reduced. The use of electric vehicles (EVs) could be a solution but it is not yet mainstream. For now, the major solution is to employ fuel-saving techniques to reduce fuel consumption. Here are some of the fuel-saving techniques you must use:
Do Not Unnecessarily Keep The Vehicle Engine On
It is wise to switch off the engine when you are not using the car. It is not wise to aimlessly idle the vehicle, especially for long periods. If you come to a complete stop e.g. parking, it is pointless to leave the car idling for more than a minute. Some even suggest that you should not keep it on for over 10 seconds after parking. A cup’s worth of fuel is consumed every 10 minutes your vehicle is idling. Driving during rush hours can make following this principle difficult. That is why as much as possible you must avoid driving during rush hour as you will consume more fuel.
Regularly Get Your Vehicles Serviced
Just ensuring your vehicle is fully and regularly serviced can promote fuel efficiency. Making sure the engine is working efficiently is pertinent. In servicing your vehicle you must use oils, lubricants and the like from reputable sources. You must also use trusted brands; do not blindly look for the cheapest products. This is also a good place to emphasise the importance of using fuel from trusted sources.
Note also that your battery must always be checked to see if it is in good condition. A faulty or poorly performing battery leads to more fuel consumption. Notable mention here as well is fuel caps on vehicles. It is said that almost 20 per cent of vehicles have faulty, damaged, or missing fuel caps. This leads to fuel loss through vaporization; make sure your fuel cap is in order.
Keep Your Vehicle Tyres And Vehicle Body In Check
Always check your tyres to see if they are well inflated. If the tyres are not sufficiently inflated, this leads to increased rolling resistance. This results in increased fuel consumption – up to 4 percent. After all, driving with under-inflated tyres shortens their life span. Since I just mentioned some physics elements here let me also add some aerodynamics.
There are things you should avoid doing because they lead to increased fuel consumption. Common examples of that are keeping your windows wide open when driving. Another one is keeping the sunroof open. There is also this habit of piling stuff on the roof of the vehicle. All these things significantly reduce fuel efficiency.
Any extremities on the body of your vehicle lead to increased drag when driving. That is why you should carefully consider how you pack or attach anything onto the vehicle body. This also extends to ensuring the vehicle is clean from anything like mud and the like. No wonder why you should always have your vehicle spotlessly cleaned. This goes a long way in reducing aerodynamic drag to increase fuel efficiency.
Consider Your Speed Dynamics
How you accelerate or decelerate has bearings on fuel consumption. When accelerating, do not do it abruptly or aggressively. You must accelerate gently i.e. step on the pedal. This will promote efficient fuel consumption. Abrupt or aggressive acceleration consumes more fuel. It is also advised to maintain steady speeds. Do not have incessant spikes and dips of acceleration and deceleration when driving. Maintaining steady speeds for a stretch is more fuel-efficient. That is why if your vehicle has the cruise control feature you must use it. Over-speeding leads to more fuel consumption. Usually, the time you gain by over-speeding is not worth the increased fuel consumption.
Wherever possible, try to limit the stuff you carry. Whilst carrying stuff can mostly be inevitable, it is wise to avoid carrying unnecessary baggage. With increased load comes increased fuel consumption. Every 25 kilograms of load you add on increases the fuel consumption by 1 percent. Most drivers have a habit of keeping a whole bunch of stuff in their vehicles. If you can, always remove any unnecessary load and travel as light as possible.
Go Easy On The Air-Conditioning
Air-conditioning is great and all but it consumes fuel. (Anything that feeds off the battery leads to more fuel consumption the longer it is on). You must only use it when necessary. Prolonged use of air-conditioning at one go can spike fuel consumption by over 20 percent. When it is hot you can open the windows. When it is cold you can use air-conditioning but periodically for short durations. Keeping it on in cold weather can even lead to a driver dozing off so it better not use it that much.
The other obvious and somewhat overlooked technique is to drive less. Practically, if you are being objective enough there are times when driving might not be necessary. Let us suppose you drive to and fro work daily. Did you know it might be cheaper to at times commute? Driving does provide convenience but at times the cost is not worth it. Another cool idea is that of carpooling; I once did an article on this some time back. This is when a group of people come together to contribute fuel and they all use one car. As you can see there are so many techniques to use in saving fuel. You must actively monitor your fuel consumption to draw insights as well. You might end up noting some interesting strategies you could use.