Progressing through summer, the tutor recalls these issues he’s always loved discussing.  During tutoring, he rarely gets to….

 
One source of fascination, for some drivers (and MOST people in the transport business), is how fuel consumption increases with speed.

Any cyclist knows that on level ground, their speed tops out very quickly even under optimum conditions. Riding my mountain bike avidly in my early 20s, I noticed that it’s hard to ride 20km/h for more than an hour – yet 15km/h can be sustained indefinitely with good conditions. On a racing bike, both speeds would be higher, but the point is the same.

Driving, your car doesn’t get tired; rather, it just uses more fuel. How much more? Well, the good people at the US Department of Energy are offering this rule of thumb:

For every 5mph over 50mph, it’s like you’re paying $0.25 more per gallon of gas.

Converting to Canadian units, we can translate:

For every 8km/h over 80km/h, it’s like you’re paying $0.066 more per litre.

Since I rarely drive, I don’t know the pump price today; I hear it’s around $1.40 per litre. If you drive 100 km/h (as opposed to 80km/h), you’re effectively paying about $0.16 more per litre, or around $1.56.

Then again: time is money:)

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.