The US consumer fleet (cars, SUV’s, vans, cross-overs and lighttrucks) has an average drag coefficient of 0.4, an average milesdriven per year of 12,500 at 50 MPH and an average frontal area of5.5 m2. Being that there are 265 million of these ‘average’vehicles on the road driven by consumers, calculate:
a. Gasoline consumed per vehicle annually assuming 25% overallefficiency
b. Gasoline consumed per vehicle annually assuming if the speedlimit on federal highways was cut down from 70 to 55 MPH resultingin a decrease in the average speed to 43 MPH.
c. How many barrels of oil would be saved annually by loweringthe speed limit?
d. If instead of 55 MPH there were an absolute federal speedlimit on all roads of 45 MPH, lowering the average speed to 35 MPH,repeat b) and c) above.
e. If instead of lowering the speed limit the aerodynamics ofall vehicles were improved such that the average vehicle now has adrag coefficient of 0.35, how many barrels of oil would that saveannually?
f. If the size of engines were cut down on every vehicle in thefleet equivalent to the efficiency of the average vehicle aboveincreasing to 40%, how many barrels of oil would that saveannually?
g. What if by force of tax we were all limited in driving acertain number of miles and this resulted in the original averagevehicle driving 10,000 miles per year, how many barrels of oilwould that save annually? How many gallons of gas is that percapita and how much would each person save dollar-wise peryear?
