Her is my last email from the reporter:
It will air in May, so I’d like to shoot it in April. What days of the week and what times are you available? I’d like to get a quick interview with you about simple ways to save on gas and some more extreme things people are doing to save money.
The idea of 3 sound bites is a good one and will likely be just what he is looking for for his first part.
My thought so far are:
Slow down/ do not be in a rush- haste makes waste.
Get a mpg feedback device- can you loses weight if your never get on a scale?
Plan your route to avoid traffic, excesses stop lights, unnessicary stops.
Feel free to add/ modify my list,it's just what is on the top of my head.
What are your thoughts for the second part? The extreme parts.
I was thinking of walking him through most of the mods to my car, starting with the easy ones aka grill block and pizza pans and getting more extreme as I go ask side mirror delete and boat tail.
Btw this might motivate me to wash and vacuume my car
Last time I did an interview about "simple" gas saving driving techniques, I made it simple:
On the highway: speed kills (your MPG!).
In the city: the brakes are your enemy. Every time you press that brake pedal, you turn gasoline into brake dust. So drive with the aim of keeping the vehicle moving. (Obviously requires more explanation, and involves several other techniques).
I also brought up using a "game gauge", as you suggested. Also mentioned our 100+ hypermiling tips, that range from simple to OCD-level, for people who want to go online to delve deeper.
Your "extreme" ideas sound fine. The tail is obviously going to be what people focus on / remember.
Good ides the break one is one of my stock stories I use.
The tail is where most people look, so I want to hit the others since they add up to the same mpg and are much stealthier / easy to do.
Thanks fr getting my car on the front page, do you want a new picture? I would go get on right now but it is snowing
There must be a couple of candidate photos already posted in your threads? You could just point me to those.
Condolences on the snow! It's pretty nice here today.
Scanning far ahead in order to anticipate traffic patterns. A hypermiler is proactive versus the conventional reactive crowd.
Eliminate distractions at the wheel will boost concentration meaning better awareness of your surroundings.
Anticipation is key for saving gas.
All the ones in the threads are older because they have my 1st attempt of pizza pans which rusted badly.
Here is a newer on:
Don't forget to plug ecomodder dot com!
The Following User Says Thank You to rollercoaster For This Useful Post:
I have been plugging it rather hard with the reporter. I told him to look thought the site before we do the interview. I figure it will give him a base line of what ecomodders are / how commen we are. I also recommended he look throu the wiki it will help him see that I am not the only peron who des this and that my results are well ith in the range of normal.
Do we have any em stickers that are larger font orin black,nIt will make it stand out better
My take would be: What % of your improved mpg was done strictly by adjusting the nut behind the wheel, versus the obvious radical body mods.
Most ciVillian's are not hands on, and are afraid to have their vehicles look DIFFERENT!
A % comparison might give hope to those unwilling to go radical.
You have the cake, and can eat it too w a PROPER nut behind the wheel.
The body mods are the frosting that you choose to go the distance with as a fanatic.
I'm just thinking about fishing. Feed slowly on the line something tasty, but not overwhelming. Then you can "hook them" on money they can save!!!
Cd (04-02-2012), PaleMelanesian (04-02-2012)
I told him to look thought the site before we do the interview. I figure it will give him a base line of what ecomodders are / how commen we are.
You've obviously never spoken to a reporter before. His focus is on presenting a story, not learning about something. Even the best intentioned, most well informed ones mangle things badly. When it airs the only fact you can be confident about seeing in the story is that you own a car.
I'd focus on three themes:
1. The way we drive wastes a lot of gas. Understanding that and simply paying attention can save a lot.
2. Cars are designed to be inefficient, but they do it so blatantly that you don't need an engineering degree to make the car more efficient.
3. Taking control or your right foot and your car helps you a whole lot more than just complaining about gas prices.
A printout of your pretty fuel log chart would be a great prop. They look really slick and display quite clearly what you're doing above the EPA ratings. Having the factoids at your fingertips to toss around will help- "I go this far on a tankful, instead of only that far," "My fuel log shows I've saved over 600 gallons of gas in this car- that's $8300!"