Driving slow has taught me the ways of driving, both to be a hogger and an impatient bugger..
As the driver of four cars that are strictly speaking not the most economical, I’ve long been conscious about fuel economy but have recently decided to try a challenge.
In the Lotus, I thought I’d start driving no higher than 2,000 RPM. So as the car hits that mark, I’d upshift and putter along my merry way.
Prior to this, I’d always be gunning it however possible, as for one, the car is dead underneath a certain RPM, and I’m among the few “sane” drivers (or insane depending on who you are) who does not like to be blocked by traffic.
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| Driving as blur as this photo |
I learned that, indeed, this is most likely the same mindset that Private-Hire Vehicles (PHVs) live on, driving the bare minimum that gets them the best fuel economy, which then gives them a better overall net gain, given the more fuel you spend, the more you spend.
Driving with this rule is not only really hard, but also basically impossible. Topping out in the highest gear is around 70 km/h in the Lotus, which qualifies me as a road-hogger on the highways. I actually failed this challenge almost always because I was so used to and adjusted to travelling at 90 km/h.
Okay, I’d give up on that front then. But I began to quicken my upshifts whenever possible. First gear in the Lotus is super dead unless you shift up at around 3,000 RPM, where then second wouldn’t be out of the super big power range that the Lotus has.
That delay in shifts plus the literal lack of accelerative power meant I had to at least halve one of those fronts, which was the shifts. Call me dual-clutch transmission the way I was eliminating the shift delay while still going nowhere anyways.
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| Move lah! Is what most motorists would be replaying in their minds behind me |
Then it comes to other fellow fast drivers. Unfortunately as a resident of the passing lane, anytime I enter it or been in it to pass the already slow traffic on the left, I’d be hogging the passing lane where an annoyed car from behind was right on my behind to get me to siam.
Hold on, hold on. Finally after passing maybe five cars or so who could somehow accelerate slower than my no-turbo Lotus, then could I filter and give the pileup behind me space to go faster.
I’d get annoyed every once in a while as well, seeing that even my slow driving is still faster than some people. I don’t know to what fronts can one do this, but apparently it is just possible, no matter what.
My family wasn’t able to comprehend this as well, they themselves getting a tad annoyed at my sluggishness when normally we would be rally driver and co-driver duo in weaving through traffic. It wasn’t a fond conversation to have explaining I wanted to drive slow.. not with my family, anyways.
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| This Mercedes-Benz and its users are not used to slow drives |
So ultimately, with managing only one good run of driving after a top-up, I checked my receipts and collected enough data to do a comparison to verify if me hogging the roads was a viable strategy at all.
It most certainly did. Even with stints where I was forced to do highway speeds (and higher), my fuel economy averaged nearly a full km/l more than my standard motoring rampage. Despite the same exact distance travelled (to my surprise when I checked the kilometres done before topping up), I had used three litres less. So I suppose it does work, but I’d rather pick the hybrid option of fast and slow. Road hogger is not what I want to be.
~Efini
Read more: Fuel for Thought: HoYoverse’s Varsapura has us geo-guessing locations
