Big Fuel Penalty in Head / Crosswind conditions

[ChewChewTrain]

From the Cummins' Diesel "Secrets of Better Fuel Economy"...

"For every 10 mph of headwind or crosswind, mpg is reduced by nearly 13%."

Rain and snow aren't good, too.

Full report here:

http://cumminsengines.com/uploads/do...whitepaper.pdf

[Draigflag]

Doug, you posted this back in January, don't you remember?

Maybe the mods can merge this with the duplicate topic?

[ChewChewTrain]

Originally Posted by Draigflag

Doug, you posted this back in January, don't you remember?

Maybe the mods can merge this with the duplicate topic?

Yeah. I remember. Not THAT old YET! "Where am I? And, who are you?"

While rereading the Cummins report, I noticed the wind penalty info. So, I thought I'd use that as an excuse to repost the article for new Fuelly members, who most likely didn't see the original 6 month old post. I know that I haven't combed through ALL the older fuelly posts.

Plus, as you know, Paul, I like to hear the sound of my voice.

[LDB]

Yes, and driving 10mph faster does the same thing.

[Draigflag]

The original topic is here with my results. I saw an epic 20% dive in strong headwinds with added rain just to rub salt in the wound!

http://www.fuelly.com/forums/f8/headwind-18370.html

[ChewChewTrain]

Originally Posted by LDB

Yes, and driving 10mph faster does the same thing.

Invent something to determine if one is driving into a headwind, crosswind, or not.

[LDB]

That will be up to someone more inventive than I. I just know driving 62 got me a lot better mileage than the guys running 70+ in like spec'd trucks.

[ChewChewTrain]

Originally Posted by LDB

That will be up to someone more inventive than I. I just know driving 62 got me a lot better mileage than the guys running 70+ in like spec'd trucks.

We should get Draigflag/Paul to invent something. He's got enough spare money to waste on exotic, collectible EVs. And, he's obviously has lots of free time, as evidenced by how often he comments on this website.

To be perfectly fair, I'll flip a coin. Heads, Paul does it. Tails, Paul does it later.

[Charon]

You don't have to invent anything. Just buy an anemometer of the type with a little propeller on one end and a fin on the other to keep the propeller pointed into the wind. The propeller gives you the airspeed; the direction it is pointed gives the wind direction relative to the car.

[OliverGT]

Charon,

Not quite sure how this would work, given that the car is moving through the air as well as the air moving relative to the ground.

Maybe if you had something like an aeroplane, where you get both ground speed and air speed, where airspeed will include any tail/head/side wind. it still doesn't really give you side wind information though.

I know this is good information to have, but I'm not quite sure what changes or decisions you could make having this information. Although I suppose at the very least it would let you know why your MPG for a certain trip was not as good as it should be.

Oliver.