Conventional Engines

• Drive Sensibly: Aggressive driving (speeding, rapid acceleration and braking) wastes gas.
  • Aggressive driving can lower your gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and by five percent around town.
  • Sensible driving is also safer for you and others, so you may save more than gas money.
  • Fuel Economy Benefit: 5-33 percent
• Observe the Speed Limit: While each vehicle reaches its optimal fuel economy at a different speed (or range of speeds), gas mileage usually decreases rapidly at speeds above 60 mph.
  • As a rule of thumb, you can assume that each five mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.20 per gallon for gas.
  • Observing the speed limit is safer.
  • Fuel Economy Benefit: 7-23 percent
• Remove Excess Weight: Avoid keeping unnecessary items in your vehicle, especially heavy ones.
  • An extra 100 pounds in your vehicle could reduce your mpg by up to two percent.
    • The reduction is based on the percentage of extra weight relative to the vehicle's weight and affects smaller vehicles more than larger ones.
  • Fuel Economy Benefit: 1-2 percent per 100 lbs
• Avoid Excessive Idling: Idling gets 0 miles per gallon.
  • Cars with larger engines typically waste more gas at idle than do cars with smaller engines.
• Keep Tires Properly Inflated: You can improve your gas mileage by around 3.3 percent by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure.
• Use Cruise Control: Using cruise control on the highway helps you maintain a constant speed and, in most cases, will save gas.
• Use Overdrive Gears: When you use overdrive gearing, your car's engine speed goes down. This saves gas and reduces engine wear.

Note: Cost savings are based on an assumed fuel price of $3.23/gallon. Source: www.fueleconomy.gov

Hybrid Vehicles
There are different strategies for maximizing the fuel economy of a hybrid vehicle.

• Where you drive: Hybrids maximize their fuel efficiency in stop and go driving, so they do better in town than on the highway.
• Braking: Hybrids feature regenerative braking, allowing the inertia of the car to recharge the hybrid batteries whenever the brakes are pressed.
  • To maximize regenerative braking, start braking gently and as early as possible so you can recover the most braking energy for later use.
  • If you brake too late and too hard, mechanical brakes will take over losing the benefit of the technology.
• Accelerating: Unlike in conventional vehicles, hybrids actually increase their efficiency when accelerating up to cruising speed is done briskly.
  • The engine is most efficient at high speed and torque, so you'll use less fuel accelerating aggressively for a short time than accelerating slowly for a long time.
• Onboard Computer: Take advantage of hybrids' computerized monitors that report your fuel economy.
  • The real-time mpg display will provide you feedback to help improve your driving habits.
• Air Conditioning: In Ford Escape Hybrids, the more efficient electric motor does not turn on when the air conditioning is set to “Max.”
  • So, once the cabin is a comfortable temperature, be sure to turn the knob away from “Max” or turn on the "Econo" mode to allow the hybrid technology to work and the fuel efficiency to reach its potential.

Here's what Sarasota County is doing

• Biodiesel: County fueling stations began providing B5 biodiesel in August of 2007.
  • A change that is expected to reduce fossil fuel dependency by 50,000 gallons per year.
    • Higher blends are planned in the future.
• Diesel-Electric Hybrid Buses:
  • 10 hybrid SCAT buses have been in service since February of 2007, saving up to 7,000 gallons of diesel per year.
• Fleet Fuel Reductions: Promoting the elimination of vehicle idling and the best practices for ensuring maximum fuel conservation whenever possible, through better selection of the appropriate asset for each type of job.
• Fleet Maintenance: Fleet Services follows a proactive preventative maintenance schedule on all assets to identify and eliminate potential problems with equipment that could result in higher than necessary fuel consumption.
• Fleet Hybrid Vehicles: 16 hybrid vehicles are in use with several available for general use in the vehicle pool, with a total annual fuel savings of between 1165 and 1500 gallons.
• Legacy Trail: Purchased in 2004, the 12.4-mile long former rail corridor provides bike and pedestrian access to citizens.
• Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles: Founding member of Austin’s Plug-in Partners National Campaign to show manufacturers there is a demand for PHEVs. Second County in the nation to do so.