fuel efficiency

Australians John and Helen Taylor are on their way to a new record in fuel efficiency. The couple, who’ve been setting fuel economy records for a quarter-century, are touring the U.S. in a clean-diesel VW Jetta TDI. As of September 10, the Taylors had covered over 2,700 miles and averaged 58.78 mpg. The current record for lowest fuel consumption on a nationwide drive is 51.58 mpg, so the Taylors are in good shape so far.

They began their latest record-breaking attempt to drive across the lower 48 in Chantilly, Virginia, and will end it September 26 in Beckley, West Virginia, after looping through Vermont, Montana, California, Louisiana, and points in between. The Taylors are using fuel-saving tacticts of the sort they teach in their fuel economy workshops, like avoiding idling and high speeds, plus all the GoodGreenCars.com faves like checking tire pressure and planning your route.

Check out Fuel Academy, the Taylors’ web site, for posts from the road and more information about their efforts to reduce oil consumption and CO2 emissions. They hold 46 speed driving world records and 36 fuel economy world records, so it sounds like they know how to have fun while reducing their impact on the planet.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has teamed up with Governor Bill Ritter of Colorado to unveil the ecoDriving campaign. [WARNING: When you click on that link, the Governator immediately starts talking to you, with nary a stop or mute button in sight.] Auto manufacturers and dealers, along with industry leaders and politicians, have aimed the campaign at drivers who want to increase the fuel efficiency and reduce the emissions of the car they already drive.

The site offers tips like keeping tires properly inflated and “riding the green wave” — maintaining a steady speed to hit all the green lights on a long street. I have an uncle who is the king of this maneuver; I thought he was anal, but it turns out he’s a natural-born ecoDriver. The site also recommends keeping the gas cap tight to reduce evaporation.

There’s a clever ecoCalculator to tell you, based on your yearly mileage, mpg, and driving habits, how many pounds of CO2 you could be saving by adopting a couple new habits. If I kept the tires on my little red truck inflated, for instance, I’d save $68 a year on gas and keep 76 more pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

The site has games, resources, and will help you send a message to your governor asking him or her to sign on to the ecoDriving campaign. In a related measure, the National Automobile Dealers Association is recommending that its members give free green checkups in the month of September, along with child safety seat inspections.

The Cobalt XFE has done so well for GM in these days of expensive gas and carbon-consciousness that it’s expanding the fuel-efficient XFE measures to the much larger Silverado, Tahoe, Sierra, and Yukon this fall.

The XFE models get 5% better mileage on the highway and 7% better in the city, which in trucks and SUVs as big as these is still a pretty small difference. All four models will get 15 city, 21 highway, as opposed to the vanilla varieties, which get 14 city, 20 highway. Huzzah!

The difference the XFE tweaks make is more noticeable in a small car like the Cobalt, where the company first used them. The regular-issue 2008 Cobalt with an automatic transmission gets 22 mpg city and 31 mpg highway; the 2008 FXE trimmed Cobalt gets 25 in the city and 36 on the highway.

The XFE designation means the vehicles were lightly redesigned with more fuel-efficient engines and better aerodynamics. The four new trucks all have:

• 5.3L Flex-Fuel engine
• Aluminum cylinder block and heads to reduce mass
• Lowered suspension to improve aerodynamics
• Aluminum wheels and spare to reduce mass
• Low rolling resistance tires with higher tire pressure

Now that Mini is going electric, everybody wants a piece of the action. Smart has a test EV running around in Europe right now, and while Tata has long had plans to introduce an electric car, they’re going ahead with a diesel this year.

The electric Smart ForTwo, known as the Smart ed, has a 41-hp electric motor and sodium-nickel-chloride batteries. It gets about 70 miles per charge, and has a maximum speed of 70 mph, which makes it a reasonable commuter EV, even if your commute involves highways. Price and market haven’t been announced, but they do expect it to go on sale in 2010. Cross your fingers that it comes your way — and you can afford it.

While we may have to wait a while for the EV version of the Tata Nano, the diesel version will hit the Indian market in October. The hatchback will go a rocking 50 mph from its little 33-hp, 2-cylinder diesel engine, but it gets 52 mpg city, 61 highway. The added efficiency will drive up the regular Nano’s price of $2,500 to about $4,200.