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English 102

26 April 2011

Melody Gough,

Reading this paper should change the way you would go buy a car in today’s rough economy and help you with finding what car would work best for you in the long or short run. This paper will include information about how some of the new technology works, how much it costs, and especially is it actually worth it for the consumer to spend extra money to buy an alternatively fueled car. Before going into each car in depth, I write about what kind of power each car uses to run, and put in simple terms so anyone can decipher the differences and make there own opinions from the research that I have provided. I also hope that you find the tips at the end of the paper interesting and that you put them to the test to save some money. I believe I chose a very good topic, because I don’t know anybody who isn’t trying to save money when they are at the pump.

I went into great depth when talking about the Ford Fusion, because it is a popular car that is very easy to compare and it comes in two gas saving models and one non gas saving model I used as my control. I even made did my own calculations and compiled a lot of data to make a chart and a graph so it would be easier to see which car you can get the best bang for your buck with.

One thing I added that I originally wasn’t going to was the page about the new clean diesel that BMW created recently. I added this because I saw it in one of my Road and Track magazines and thought it should be included because BMW boasts of its outstanding performance and fuel economy combo. So it naturally had a spot in my paper, I just didn’t know it at first.

Thanks for reading. I had a good time in English this semester for the first time in my life.

Tyler Ash

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Tyler Ash

Melody Gough

English 102

April 3, 2011

Final Research Project

Gas Saving Theories

Gas prices have been going through the roof the last couple of years and many car

companies and people are trying to find new ways to save money when they are at the pump.

The prices aren’t so high just because of what is going on in the middle east, one major factor to

expensive prices is the Clean Air Act of 1990 (History). The reason that this made gas more

expensive is that the government required fuel additives so the pollutants wouldn’t be as bad

(History). Now the gas companies had to raise the price because of the extra cost and driver

needed to fill up more often because the additives made gas mileage worse. The types of

alternatively fueled cars include hybrid, electric, and clean diesel cars. There are also a few

simple tips to save big just by slightly changing driving habits. I am going to show what type of

cars are worth the money in the short run, long run, and which ones are the best for the

environment.

The first type of car I will be analyzing is the hybrid class because it is by far the most

prominent in the market at this point in time. A hybrid is a combination of a gas engine and an

electric motor that work together to provide better gas mileage in city driving situations. The

electric motor is powered by lithium ion batteries that Craig Morris, a certified mechanic, says

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“are half the size and twice as strong, which makes them four time more efficient.” This

technology has improved that much in the last five years alone. Another benefit of hybrids is

that they don’t need to be charged because every car is equipped with regenerative braking

systems that take the friction created by the brakes and turns it into electricity for the batteries.

The one aspect that usually drives people away from buying hybrids is that they cost

substantially more than the gas version of the car. Also, if a lot of highway driving is done, there

is no advantage to having the hybrid because it gets the same mileage as the gas car. The ideal

buyer of a hybrid would be someone who lives in a big city like Los Angeles or San Francisco

where there is a lot of stop and go traffic. This way more electricity will be used than gas, as

long as the driver doesn’t have a “lead foot”.

The cars I am using for my comparison of hybrids to gas are the 2011 Ford Fusion and

the 2011 Ford Fusion Hybrid. Both cars come equipped with the exact same components and

they also look identical, but the hybrid costs $8,520 (about seventy percent) more than its gas

counterpart (Ford). For the same car being seventy percent more, one would think you don’t

even need to put gas into it. This is a great car to compare because they were two of the highest

selling mid-sized sedans in America. Most people who drive family sedans usually wouldn’t

care about the performance, but it is an important aspect to take into consideration when buying

a car. The gas powered fusion has sixteen less horsepower and thirty six pounds per foot more

torque than the hybrid, but still manages to be one point two seconds faster from zero to sixty

miles per hour (Ford). A common misconception is that horsepower means speed, but nine times

out of ten it will be the car with more torque and less weight that will prevail in this category. In

this bad economy the most important part is most likely the fuel economy. The gas Fusion gets

twenty six miles per gallon while the Hybrid gets an additional twelve at thirty eight (Ford).

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This sounds like a very large difference in fuel economy, but the real question is whether or not

the hybrid is actually worth the extra money in retail price compared to the savings in gas.

I used a couple of easy numbers that are realistic to figure out how long it would be for

them to be equal in retail price plus gas costs. To find the difference in gas costs per year I

multiplied ten thousand (miles per year) by four dollars (price per gallon of gas) then divided it

all by the combined fuel economy for each car. Next I found the difference in the two gas costs

for each of the cars. This let me know that on average the hybrid will cost $485.83 less in gas

per year. Finally I just took the difference in retail price and divided it by the difference in gas

price to discover that it would take about seventeen and a half years for the hybrid to be worth its

extra seventy percent in retail price. This was absolutely astounding because I do not know

many people who drive the same car for close to twenty years. Since the hybrid now seems like

a complete rip off, I chose to figure out the same thing for the 2011 Ford Fusion Flex Fuel.

The Flex Fuel only costs two hundred more dollars than the regular version (Ford). The

difference with the Flex Fuel is that two of the cylinders stop getting gas when the engine is

running at low RPMs (revolutions per minute). At low RPMs, the engine does not need its full

power and two less cylinders getting gas means less total gas consumption. This is a very simple

and cheap way to have your gas mileage be increased from twenty six to twenty eight miles per

gallon. It doesn’t seem like much, but over time it can make a drastic difference.

The table and chart below show how much total money is spent on each of the three cars

considering retail price and gas money. This table should make it much easier to see the

difference in money spent and help the understanding of the amount of time it takes for the

hybrid to actually be worth it. If I had to choose one of these cars to drive I would definitely go

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with the Flex Fuel because the pay back is less than two years, while the payback for the hybrid

is close to twenty. By then, the car will be out of date and in need of some major repairs because

it would have over two hundred thousand miles on the odometer. So my conclusion for hybrids

is that they are not worth the money yet, but the rapidly improving technology could make this a

great, cheap alternative in the near future.

0 years 5 years 10 years 15 years 20 years 25 years

Gas$19,82

0 $27,512.3

0 $35,204.6

0 $42,896.9

0 $50,589.2

0 $58,281.5

0

Flex Fuel$20,02

0 $27,162.8

6 $34,305.7

2 $41,448.5

8 $48,591.4

4 $55,734.3

0

Hybrid$28,34

0 $33,603.1

5 $38,866.3

0 $44,129.4

5 $49,392.6

0 $54,655.7

5

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0 years 5 years 10 years 15 years 20 years 25 years$0

$10,000

$20,000

$30,000

$40,000

$50,000

$60,000

$70,000

Ford Fusion Comparison

GasFlex FuelHybrid

Axis Title

The next car I am going to talk about is the Chevy Volt, which is also a hybrid, but in a

very different way. The Volt costs less than thirty three thousand dollars and has a one hundred

and fifty horsepower and two hundred and seventy three pounds per foot of torque from its fully

electric engine (Chevy). Surprisingly, it can still reach one hundred miles per hour on pure

electricity (Chevy). These are impressive statistics for an electric powered car with the amount

of horsepower it has. The reason it has such good performance is that electric engines are far

more efficient than gasoline combustion engines. The batteries however, only last forty miles

until the Volt needs to be plugged in to an outlet for four hours to get recharged (Chevy). This is

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the major part of where Chevy has room to improve. Even if they doubled the forty miles to

eighty before needing charging, many more commuters would consider buying the Chevy Volt

because many people drive more than forty miles to get to and from work every day. The bright

side about this charging process is that it only costs about one dollar and twenty cents to go from

empty to fully charged (Chevy). The part I have not yet talked about is that after the batteries are

empty, an eighty horsepower gas generator kicks in to recharge the batteries so the electric

engine can keep going running (Chevy). This is the first car of its kind that runs only on

electricity, but also uses gas to keep it going once the electric energy is depleted. The Volt can

go three hundred miles after the batteries are drained on nine gallons of regular gas, which

correlates to about thirty three miles per gallon (Chevy). When a whole tank of gas and all of the

battery reserves are used up, the Chevy Volt costs about eleven cents per mile. The makers of

the Volt have a great idea with this car, but it also has lots of room for improvement. This car

would be perfect for the driver who has a short commute or someone who has to run errands

around town because it would be possible to never use a drop of gas if the trips are short. Unlike

the Tesla Roadster, the Volt is a very affordable car that can potentially never use gas at all.

The Tesla Roadster is an amazing step in the world of electric cars due to the fact that it

is the only one hundred percent electric true sports car. This is a great looking roadster with

some serious speed and dirt cheap running costs, but it’s going to cost about one hundred

thousand dollars (Tesla). The Tesla is much more refined than the Volt because it can travel two

hundred and forty five miles, six times more than the Volt, on a single four hour charge (Tesla).

The best part about this charge is that it costs a mere five dollars which works out to costing two

cents per mile (Tesla). This little roadster puts out about two hundred and ninety horsepower

and pounds per foot of torque which propels it to sixty miles per hour in only three point seven

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seconds in the sport model (Tesla). This is the perfect car for the car enthusiast who is trying to

be nice to the planet because this car produces zero emissions.

Now I wanted to compare this electric street car to a Chevy Corvette ZR1 because they

cost about the same and move at about the same speed. The supercharged Vette costs an extra

ten thousand dollars more than the Tesla, but also can get to sixty miles per hour point four

seconds faster (Chevy). It doesn’t sound like very much, but when racing, it is the little things

that make the biggest difference in the end. The ZR1 has an absolutely outstanding six hundred

and thirty eight horsepower and six hundred and four pounds per foot of torque going to the rear

wheels, all controlled by a dual clutch, silky smooth six speed manual transmission (Chevy).

With this great power also comes great pain when filling up with premium gas when you are

getting only fourteen miles per gallon in the city and twenty on the freeway, and this is assuming

the driver is following the speed limit which seems highly unlikely with this car (Chevy).

Mechanic Craig Morris said, “even though it [the Tesla Roadster] may be as fast and

much cheaper to run than the Corvette, you will be missing out on the driving experience that

comes with the Vette.” Before Craig said this I thought speed was speed and it didn’t matter

where it came from, but after watching some videos of the two cars, it is clear to me that driving

the Corvette ZR1 would be worth every penny in gas. The Tesla sounds like a whistle or a

whining noise when accelerating while the sound that comes from the ZR1 is simply

indescribable, so I suggest you go watch some videos to be able to understand what raw power

sounds like. I would think the Tesla feels like driving a really expensive and big radio control

car, not a street rod. I think the Tesla makers should figure out how to do something to the

electric engine to make the whining go away and have it produce that deep muscle car growl

everyone wants in their cars. All in all, the reason someone usually buys a fast car is because

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they want the entire driving experience, which cannot be fully achieved through driving the

Tesla Roadster Sport.

The next alternatively fueled car I will be analyzing is the BMW 335d which stands for

diesel. This is the first ever “clean diesel” because it gives off so few emissions that anybody

can literally go breathe air from the tailpipe and be perfectly fine. This BMW offers a best in

class thirty six miles per gallon on the freeway but also flies to sixty miles per hour in just under

six seconds (BMW). They also keep it affordable and make the car less than three thousand

dollars more than its gas counterpart, but it is really better than that because this clean diesel get

a thirteen hundred dollar eco-friendly government rebate (BMW). The torque in this car is

considerably more than any other car in its class, making it get that extra jump right off of the

line. Diesels also have better residual value, so they are worth more for longer than gas cars.

This BMW has some great qualities and it has the potential be big in the market, especially since

it still looks like a classic BMW and it still sounds like a BMW.

I have heard about people taking used vegetable oil from fast food restaurants and putting

it in their old diesel cars, so I asked Craig about it. He replied with, “at first it’s pretty cool, but

after acquiring and filtering so much oil the tasks become annoying.” I would have to agree with

him because the old cars that use vegetable oil only get about ten miles per gallon so people need

to go get oil and filter it very often.

This portion of the research is for people who cannot afford a new car but still want to

know what they can do to save some money at the pump. In one of my Car and Driver

Magazines, I ran across an interesting article that said that if I do early up shifts in my manual

car I will save a ton of money on gas because the RPMs stay lower (C & D). I also found out

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that at a steady fifty five miles per hour is where most cars get optimal gas mileage. The

Department of Energy says the, “each mile per hour over sixty is like paying and extra ten cents

per gallon (C & D). I had no idea that driving fifty five instead of sixty five had such a huge

impact of gas mileage. I have been driving slower on the freeway since I found out this

interesting fact. Two other easy things to do are turning the air conditioner off and to check your

tire pressure and inflate them to the maximum recommendation; doing this can save up to

fourteen percent on gas mileage (C & D). It is apparent to me that a few small changes can save

you big money over time when filling up, so why not surf the web and find some more ways to

save gas, because it will be worth it.

I believe these are some awesome ways to save big money on gas, weather it is buying a

new car or just changing your driving habits. I have concluded that at this point in time, hybrids

are not worth the extra money in retail price even though they get better mileage because they

take an average of about twenty years to be worth it. I think the flex fuel concept is great

because it is a very cheap option to add on to your vehicle and it also pays itself off in less than

two years in any kind of car it is put in. The Chevy Volt has a great concept going, but I think if

they are going to make some real progress they need to at least double the life of the battery

powered distance it can travel. The Tesla Roadster really is an amazing car, but I think that it

has the chance of being the best if the makers could just make it sound like a real car instead of a

toy. The ZR1 is obviously not a gas saver, but it is one of the best cars out there all around so

that is why I chose it to compare with the Tesla. Finally the BMW 335d is not what one would

expect when you say diesel; it is sporty, luxury, economic, and it even still sounds like a sports

car, not like a big diesel truck. I hope that the tips give everyone some helpful advice on what

they can do to really take control of their gas budget. I going out saying hybrids are improving,

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electrics are almost there, the clean diesel is a great alternative anyway you look at it, and do not

forget to be aware of what you are doing to your gas when you speed on the freeway.

Annotated Bibliography

2011 Cars, SUVs, Trucks, Crossovers & Vans | Chevrolet. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://www.chevrolet.com>.

This online source from Chevy has great performance specifications that will be very useful in my final research project. As of right now, I will be focusing on the Corvette ZR1 and also the Volt. The Corvette will serve as my comparison to the Tesla roadster (a 100% electric car). I will be comparing prices, performance, and of course fuel economy. The Volt will be my example of a more affordable electric car, but also uses gas for back up. This Volt is the first of its kind and will be new and interesting to almost any reader. I will also be bringing up its performance and economic specifications. This is a credible source because Chevy would get sued if they had false advertisement, and the website is constructed by a qualified group, not a single person. I

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used they Chevy website extensively throughout my paper whenever I was talking about the Volt or my personal favorite the Corvette ZR1. It provided me with all of the exact specifications of the cars so I could differentiate between good and bad ideas and concepts for saving on gas.

"2011 Ford Fusion | View All Ford Fusion Specifications | Ford.com." Ford New Cars, Trucks, SUVs, Hybrids & Crossovers | Ford Vehicles. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. <http://www.ford.com/cars/fusion/specifications/view-all/>.

The ford fusion is going to be used for my comparison between three identical cars, but one will be gas, one hybrid, and one flex fuel. All three of these will show what performance you sacrifice for economy, and also exactly how long it takes to pay off that hybrid engine in gas money. This is also a great website because it gives you a side-by-side comparison so you don’t have to go searching for specifications for each model. The Ford Fusion is also a family car and a very high seller; so many people will find this information useful when buying a car in the future. The website is reliable because it is a fortune 500 company and the information posted on it is checked multiple times for accuracy before it is released to the public. I also used the Ford Fusion pages a ton because they were so helpful with the side by side comparisons, so I could see what was different about each car then figure out what that has to do with my topic of saving money on gas.

Csere, Csaba. "Two Ways to Improve Your Mileage." Car & Driver Feb. 2009: 52-53. Print.

This is a very interesting article because there are a series of tests conducted by the Car & Driver team that prove that you can improve your gas mileage and save money just by the way you shift a manual car. It goes in depth about how early up shifts can drastically improve gas mileage by keeping the RPMs lower than usual. The information is reliable because it is a nationally known magazine and the equipment used to track gas mileage was the same high tech GPS for all cars tested. This theory might change the way people drive their manual cars forever. This article also show some other simple steps towards being a better driver when it comes to gas saving, like turning off the air conditioner and having inflated tires. This is pretty awesome, because anybody can make these simple changes to their driving habits and greatly increase their mileage just by being aware of what they are doing. This was used at the end of my paper to show how everyone can save a little extra even if they don’t have the money to buy a new car that runs on electricity and what not.

"Lexus RX - Features & Pricing - Performance." Lexus: New Luxury Cars and SUVs from Lexus USA. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. <http://www.lexus.com/models/RX/features/performance.html>.

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The Lexus website is also another great place to compare performance specifications between their gas and their hybrid RX SUV. I wanted to include this with the Ford Fusion because it is more luxury, and a different kind of hybrid that doesn’t increase the cost as much in addition to being a much larger vehicle. I will use this to do the payoff equation to find how long it really takes to payoff that expensive hybrid engine. This is also reliable because it is an international fortune 500 company with a team of website constructors that check and recheck their work and information for accuracy. I ended up not using this website because I think that the information was much more clear and pretty much the same thing on the Ford Fusion web site.

"Roadster Features and Specifications | Tesla Motors." Tesla Motors | Premium Electric Vehicles. Web. 22 Mar. 2011. <http://www.teslamotors.com/roadster/specs>.

The Tesla Roadster is the first real fully electric sports car ever constructed. This is why I choose it as one of my test subjects to compare to other non electric cars. This insanely fast electric wonder will be compared to the supercharged Chevy Corvette ZR1 in performance, fuel economy, and price. This is also a reliable site because false claims and advertisement could send the company into bankruptcy. I also double checked some of the statistics of the car from popular magazines that tested the car as well. I believe this is the future of cars after writing this paper, but there are still things that need to be changed to make this technology more affordable and widely available to the public. It also shows that a car doesn’t need to have six hundred horsepower and waste a gallon of gas just to drive down the street. This was an awesome site that I learned a ton from and used much of the information in my research paper.

Anderson, Curtis D., and Judy Anderson. Electric and Hybrid Cars: a History. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010. Print.

This book talks about a clean air act of 1990 and how additives to fuel made gas better for the environment but also made it more expensive and less fuel economic. This will be useful in my paper because it gives a better understanding of exactly why gas prices have been increasing, excluding war and economic recession. This book also talks about the six different types of hybrids in the appendix, which shows me what kind of technology there is. This is a trusted source because it is a published second edition and it also discusses actual government activity in their attempt to save the environment. This is at the beginning of my paper to show where some of the problems lie with gas. This also gives some detail on why gas prices have been exponentially growing. I hope the readers find this as interesting as I do.

Fell, Jim. "How to Get 100 Mpg from Your Car." Academic Search Premier. EBSCO, 09 Feb. 2008. Web. 28 Mar. 2011.

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This is an article that I found in the Knowledge center database about how hybrids work and are made. It also goes in depth about how hybrids can be modified to get one hundred miles per gallon, which really caught my eye and I thought it would be interesting to include. This will be good for my paper because everybody would love to get one hundred miles per gallon even if it was a farfetched idea. Also included that would be very helpful is the completion between different hybrid producing companies (which is almost all of them now). This article may sound like it is unreliable, but it is a peer edited piece that has been previously looked through. If it were a false or bad article it wouldn’t get the “peer edited status”. I used this source, but not extensively because the driving techniques he is proposing are outrageous and no one would be able to drive like that in their day to day life without being completely focused and weird for that matter.

"A Mechanic's Perspective on Alternatively Fueled Cars with Craig Morris." Personal interview. 8 Apr. 2011.

My interview with Craig Morris went great and I used a couple of his quotes to bring up a new idea and also support some of my own ideas. This is good because he is a more credible source than I am because he is an actual certified mechanic, and that’s what he does every day.

BMW USA. Web. 25 Apr. 2011.

<http://www.bmwusa.com/standard/content/vehicles/2011/3/335dsedan/default.aspx>.

I originally did not know that I would be using this website as a source, because I never realized how ground breaking the BMW 335d really is. It combines speed, luxury, economy, and it even good for the environment. This is a great car to include in a research project like this, and I am very glad I found it and was able to incorporate it into my final paper.