My forest-green 1998 Chevrolet Venture minivan is a gas guzzler, sucking up a gallon of fuel every 19 miles -- at least according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
But according to me and 3,000 miles of road, it actually gets a surprisingly thrifty 26 mpg -- only one fewer than the fuel-economy rating the government assigns to the 2008 Chevy Aveo, a subcompact.
I tested it the hard way, spending my vacation time driving from New York to Los Angeles, along with my wife, my panting dog, a huge bag of the panting dog's food, suitcases overflowing with summer clothes, my wife's art supplies, a closetful of shoes, bulk rations of beef jerky, a potted cactus and an oversized orchid (try fitting all that in an Aveo).
Despite the load, the worst tankful of the whole drive got me 22.6 miles per gallon, and that was while crossing the Rocky Mountains.
With gasoline still hovering near $3 a gallon in California, squeezing every last mile out of our favorite hydrocarbons has become a priority, and many people are considering whether to dump their SUVs and buy hybrids.
But on my road trip, I discovered there's more to fuel economy than the numbers on a window sticker might imply, that even with gas prices creeping steadily downward, saving gas is a good idea, and that there are more rational ways to deal with volatile fuel costs than borrowing from your 401(k) to buy a Prius.
And as we crossed the nation, obsessing over how soft to go on the throttle and whether to run the air conditioning, everyone we saw wanted to talk about gasoline. From South Philly to North Platte, Neb., to the Motel 6 just off the Strip in Las Vegas, filling up was agony we all shared.
"Everybody is outraged. Everybody is panicked," said Ralph Justice, who works the afternoon shift at a Citgo station on the north side of Pittsburgh. "People blame the government. They blame the oil companies. I have people paying for their gas in change these days."
We didn't pay in change, but we did our best to keep our trip inexpensive. All told, we drove 3,040 miles, from Brooklyn, N.Y., to West Los Angeles. This was a summer vacation, when gas was at its peak, so filling up was tough.
Still, with an average gas price of $4.04 per gallon, I would have spent $646.50 if my minivan had gotten its rated mileage. Instead, my total fuel bill was just $470, a savings of more than $175. And we got home right on time.
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Low-speed strategy
Before setting out, my wife and I laid down a central ground rule: Keep the needle under 65. This proved difficult because seven of the 11 states we passed through had speed limits of 70 mph or higher. When a rusty Winnebago with an old-fashioned TV antenna on the roof is riding your back bumper for 40 miles, brights flashing and horn honking, the temptation to put a heavier foot on the gas is high.
But stop any PhD in fluid dynamics, and he or she will tell you that drag increases in proportion to the square of velocity. In layman's terms: The faster you go, the more wind resistance you face.
According to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, driving at 65 mph burns up 10% more gas than at 55. That jumps to 25% at 75 mph. Moreover, getting up to speed is a major fuel suck. Reaching 65 mph from a standstill requires 40% more energy than getting to 5 mph.
That's why driving at a constant speed is much more efficient than stopping and starting -- and why the mileage ratings are broken down into city and highway driving. If the average speed on highways were reduced to 55 mph, America would save at least 1 billion gallons of fuel a year.
Still, this is the U.S. of A., and science has a long history of yielding to the roar of a fine-tuned hemi. Past attempts to get people to drive more slowly have proved unpopular. The 1974 law that set the national limit at 55 -- and inspired one Samuel R. Hagar to write a song about the impossibility of driving at that pace -- was repealed in 1995.
"We like to save gas, but there's a limit," said Cindy and Charlie McCabe, a Poulsbo, Wash., couple whom we met in Utah. They'd driven 1,200 miles, with their kids, in a Chevy Suburban to attend a family reunion. "We do the speed limit. That's slow enough."
My wife and I are as red-blooded as the next folks, and our decade-old piece of Detroit engineering wizardry has more than once displayed its ability to go at least 82 mph on a downslope. But with a full week to get back to California, we agreed to hover in the low 60s and see what happened.
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In the Rust Belt
The only stop we made in New Jersey was to fill up at a Valero station just beyond the Holland Tunnel. Gas there was a then-bargain $3.97 a gallon, compared with about $4.35 on the New York side of the Hudson River.
