Fuel Efficiency:Mythbusters Style

Mythbusters has been running for most part of the decade, and they have already broken a lot of myths, suggested by fans and other rumors circulating the World Wide Web. The Mythbusters team is made up of special effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, along with the build team consisting of Kari Byron, Grant Imahara and Tory Belleci. With gas prices not dipping anytime soon, they launched a series of myths on how to make your car fuel efficient.

    On their second season, they debated whether it would be more fuel efficient to lower the windows instead of turning on the air conditioner when traveling. At a glance, both situations are not ideal in giving you sufficient fuel efficiency. By just turning the A/C on, it affects your fuel economy by at least 10%, on the other hand, rolling down your windows creates drag inside your vehicle and it significantly dwindles your cars’ fuel economy. Ironically the only way to avoid drag is to accelerate your car and in doing so you are decreasing your fuel economy further. The Mythbusters team tested this myth by running a vehicle in to two separate speeds, 89kph and 72 kph. In both speeds, the vehicle was required to turn the A/C on and to lower the windows down. As a result, it’s more fuel efficient to travel with your windows down in lower speeds and turning the A/C on when traveling faster. Fast forward to their third season, the issue of having a pick-up truck’s tailgate down than it is up is said to be more fuel efficient. In fact, letting the tailgate down creates drag at the back of your vehicle, which consumes more fuel than usual. Closing it creates a sealed vortex of air flowing over the vehicle that gives you a decent fuel economy.

They also have a collection of other myths like the dimpled car, which was inspired by the craters situated around a golf ball and that is said to minimize wind dresistance and travel farther than its counterparts. With that, they layered a car with clay then pressed dimples around it and drove it around The results were astonishing as fuel mileage improved by almost 12% on a single gallon. Others include taking right turns while driving, instead of driving normally, which is to wait for traffic to clear and go left. It’s said that when your vehicle is in an idle state, it consumes more gas as opposed to taking three right turns. Despite having a longer distance and is time consuming, the right turn route posted a 3% fuel efficiency improvement. Lastly, The “Great Gas Conspiracy” is a conspiracy theory, which states that gas companies are in working with car manufacturers to produce fuel inefficient cars. With this, they tried products believed to make your car fuel efficient. These included carburetors and a water fuel cell. All failed to make your car fuel efficient, some even made it worse. Surprisingly, they used cooking oil as an alternative to fuel and the car’s engine roared to life but wasn’t considered fuel efficient.

Like any another resource, fuel might also run out in the future and we might have to find a suitable alternative or save on gas to prolong our resources.  

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