I commute about 50 miles/day for school. I try to carpool with friends or family when I can; however, I was curious how much money would be saved if you go 55 mph (state limit in Oregon), 65 mph (speed limit in most states), and 70 mph (the speed at lot of people out here travel). I know limits can go higher in California and Nevada borders them but….for the purposes of this Challenge, I wanted to know what individual impact I could make on my wallet with going the speed limit and SET MY CRUISE CONTROL into town.

I’ve heard that you can get about 10% more gas efficiency by going 65 mph and I also heard that if you let your car coast down hills in neutral, you will save more. Now, i couldn’t find a calculator for coasting and nor does my car have spiffy electronics in it, I did my own test over 2 weeks.

Goal:
Increase fuel efficiency

How:
– Use Cruise Control (whenever possible)
– Travel at 65 mph (or speed limit) 🙂
– Coast in neutral down hills (whenever possible)

Outcome:
I increased my fuel efficiency by about 10%!!

I went from filling up 15 gallons at 310-320 miles to about 340-360 (depending on how close to Empty I let my gas tank get).

There are other things that you can do to increase fuel efficiency like removing excess weight from your car but with living further out of town….my car stores a lot of things I may during my day so I DON’T have to drive home to get it.