Lesson 6:

Transportation
Efficiency
BBE2201 David Schmidt

The Perfect Transportation Fuel?

• Energy Density: Energy content per
mass or volume
• Mass basis (Wikipedia – Energy
Density)
• Gasoline ~ 46 MJ/kg (20,000 Btu/lb)
• Coal ~ 24 MJ/kg (10,000 Btu/lb)
• Lithium Ion Battery ~1 MJ/kg (430 Btu/lb)
• Liquid Fuel
• Liquid fuels are easy (and cheap) to
transport and use in engines.

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CO2 Emissions from Transportation
• Airline industry 2% of total
anthropogenic GHG emissions.
• 12% of transportation emissions is
from airline and 74% from road
transportation. (Air Transport Action
Group)
• Gasoline 19.6 lbs CO2/gal
• Diesel 22 lbs CO2/gal

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Conservation
Fewer miles traveled

US Trend in Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT)

VMT per capita: Total vehicle miles traveled divided by the total population

2014
About 3 Trillion miles traveled
About 319 million people
9,404 VMT per capita/year

http://www.ssti.us/2014/02/vmt-drops-ninth-year-dots-taking-notice/

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 Key Concepts to Reduce VMT
• Personally
• Don’t “go” if you don’t have to
• Combine trips
• Carpool/Rideshare
• Take public transit
• Ride bike or walk
• Fly or drive??
• Collectively (City, State, or Nation) reduce the
Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) metric

Collective strategies to reduce VMT

• Transportation Infrastructure (more
busses, more bike lanes, HOV lanes,
• City Planning (compact cities, stores
next to residential, etc.)
• Education (advertise biking, health
benefits, air quality improvements,
etc.)
• Economics: Make it more expensive
to drive (e.g. gas tax, parking fees,
road tax
A study in Atlanta
suggested 6% increase
in obesity risk with
https://www.transportation.gov/mission/health/strategies-interventions-policies
every additional hour in
car.

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Gas Price vs VMT
• Relationship not clear
• Regressive
• Long term high gas prices
may result in different car
purchase but not less VMT

http://energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-906-january-4-2016-
vmt-and-price-gasoline-typically-move-opposition

Gasoline Price Federal Tax since 1993

Gasoline = $0.184/gal
Diesel = $0.244/gal

Average State and Local Tax

Gasoline ~ $0.311/gal
Diesel ~ $0.302/gal
(Gaspricewatch.com)

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Why Gas Prices Change

Supply and Demand is Complicated

http://www.eia.gov/finance/markets/

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Efficiency
Increase miles per gallon or reduce GHG emissions per mile

Improving Efficiency (Personally)

• Higher efficiency car (mpg)
• Driving habits (e.g. rabbit starts and stops (15%))
• Slow down (55 mph vs 75mph)
• Vehicle maintenance
• Tire pressure (3%) Blog: Automatic.Com. The cost of speeding.

• Engine maintenance (air filter, fuel filter, spark plugs,

oil changes, etc.)
• Empty trunk (100 lbs is 1%)
• Avoid Drive-Thru for meals (engine idling)
• GPS your route (shorter and quicker)

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Improving Efficiencies Collectively
(Measurements)
• What is the purpose or goal of the measurement?
• Volume of some fuel per mile?
• Energy used per mile?
• GHG emissions per mile?
• Other pollutant emissions per mile?
• How do we compare?

New Efficiency Measures

Miles per gallon (mpg)

Gallons per 100 miles
Energy per mile (Btu/mile or
kwh/mile) or now as energy
equivalent of a gallon of gasoline
or MPGe
CO2 emissions per mile (grams
CO2/mile)

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Improving Efficiency (Collectively through
Policy)
• CAFE = Corporate Average Fuel Economy
• Fleet Average: Harmonic Average (number
cars and light duty trucks sold x mpg)
• Includes
• National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA – Fuel efficiency - mpg)
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA – CO2
Emissions- grams CO2/mile)
• Penalty for not meeting standard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Average_Fuel_Economy

CAFE Standards

• Targets for individual

vehicles
• Mandate is for fleet
• Phasing in of standards to
allow for engineering
design and manufacturing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Average_Fuel_Economy

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Combined CAFE Standards (mpg and
CO2)

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/documents/420f12051.pdf

CAFE vs MPG EPA Window Sticker

• Window sticker is always less than the
CAFÉ because they use different
testing methods.
• Window sticker reflects real life testing.
• 34.1 mpg CAFE is 26 mpg window
sticker.
• 54.5 mpg CAFE (2025 standard) is 36
mpg window sticker.

http://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/faq-new-
corporate-average-fuel-economy-standards.html

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Designing for Efficiency
Engineering Challenge
Lighter weight materials
Smaller Cars

Common Arguments
More expensive?
Less safe?

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml

Alternatives
Low Carbon Fuels or Alternative Fuels

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Alternative Fuel Vehicles
• Low carbon fuels: Flex fuel – using
biofuels (discussion later in class)
• Natural Gas Powered
• Hydrogen Powered
• Electric Powered

Electric Car Label

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=bt1

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 Electric Vehicles (EVs) are not Emission
Free!
• Electrical generation with coal or natural gas generates GHG
emissions
• The source of electricity (and related emissions) must be accounted
for in any discussion of electric vehicle impacts

Coal Generated Electricity Nissan Leaf: All Electric

Economic Comparison

http://www1.extension.umn.edu/environment/energy/vehicle/
Doug Tiffany UMN Economist

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Emission Comparison

Practice Calculations

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Calculation #1
• You improve your mileage from 15 to 17 mpg.
What was the % increase in mileage?
• You improve your mileage from 35 to 37 mpg.
What was the % increase in mpg.

x 100 =

• What makes the most sense? mpg

improvements or % improvements?

Calculations #2
Your driving changes give you a 5% increase in
mileage. Your car originally got 20 mpg and you
drive 10,000 miles per year. How much gas will
you save each year?

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Calculations #2
First calculate gallons of gas used originally. Next calculate new mpg
Known Known Final Results
__ mpg * 5/100 = 1 mpg

X = __ mpg + 1 mpg = 21 mpg

Finally calculate gallons of gas used after improvement.

Known Unit Final Results

Conversion

X =

Calculation #3 Conversion Example

You have a car that gets 20 mpg. If the CO2
emissions per gallon of gasoline is 19 lbs per gallon.
How may lbs of CO2 are given off per mile of driving?

Known Known Final Results

X =

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 Questions?
bbe2201@umn.edu

Thanks!

Efficiency by Country (mpg)

http://www.c2es.org/federal/executive/vehicle-standards/fuel-economy-comparison

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Efficiency by Country (grams CO2/km)

http://www.transportpolicy.net/index.php?title=Global_Comparison:_Light-duty_Fuel_Economy_and_GHG

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