Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How can hypermiling save you gas?

Transcript

How can hypermiling save you gas? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
0:03
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
0:08
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
0:16
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is Chuck Bryant.
0:20
Speaker 1: We are podcasting right in the midst of death season. Chuck. Wow, Yeah,
0:26
Speaker 1: what I don't I don't know big Man, Fara Fawcett,
0:29
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson, Billy Mays, some impressionist. I don't know that
0:33
Speaker 1: comedian guy. Yeah, people dropping like flies. Wow. Yeah, I
0:38
Speaker 1: feel lucky to be here. I do too. Actually, Chuck,
0:40
Speaker 1: I'm on vacation. I know you are. Chuck Bryant is
0:44
Speaker 1: such a world class employee that he actually came in
0:48
Speaker 1: while on vacation too. Podcasts. This is I'm Freshen from
0:51
Speaker 1: the airport yep. From wedding in Columbus, Ohio. How was
0:55
Speaker 1: it my first Catholic wedding? Dude? Those things are awesome?
0:58
Speaker 1: My first one elnty of wine? Uh yeah, the reception, sure,
1:03
Speaker 1: but no wine at the at the mass or you
1:05
Speaker 1: were looking around there there were flasks of wine and
1:08
Speaker 1: the fews. You believe me. It was long pretty cool though,
1:12
Speaker 1: I've never experienced that. When everyone started, uh reciting the
1:16
Speaker 1: things chanting is it called chanting that? I call it chanting?
1:19
Speaker 1: It freaked me out at first, Yeah, quite honestly because
1:22
Speaker 1: I grew up Baptist and there's people don't say anything
1:25
Speaker 1: out loud in Baptist churches. But it was interesting, definitely
1:29
Speaker 1: a cool experience to go through. That's you only really
1:31
Speaker 1: need to do it once. I would agree, you know,
1:34
Speaker 1: and I doubt if I'll go to a lot more weddings.
1:35
Speaker 1: So dude, when I was living in Toledo, I probably
1:37
Speaker 1: spent fifty to seventy hours a week in a Catholic wedding,
1:42
Speaker 1: series of Catholic weddings. Yeah, columb is pretty cool though.
1:44
Speaker 1: It's Yeah, Ohio state not bad, Bill Buckeyes. Alright, are
1:48
Speaker 1: we done? Yes? Okay, what are we talking about today?
1:52
Speaker 1: We are talking about gas mileage? Oh yes, and how
1:55
Speaker 1: it's calculated, right yep, kick us off, chuck. Well, Uh,
2:01
Speaker 1: something you folks might notice when you go to buy
2:03
Speaker 1: a car these days, Um, they'll advertise certain gas mileage
2:07
Speaker 1: and you may not get the gas mileage when you're
2:10
Speaker 1: driving the car that was on the sticker on the
2:12
Speaker 1: side of the car. Or on the TV commercial that
2:15
Speaker 1: was kicking us off. That's a very common thing to
2:18
Speaker 1: not get the gas mileage that's stated. Well why well,
2:22
Speaker 1: because well let's let's get into this, all right, let's
2:25
Speaker 1: do it, Chucks. So basically, as you stated, pretty much,
2:28
Speaker 1: God and everybody knows that whatever that says on the
2:32
Speaker 1: the sticker on the car for the whatever it's miles
2:35
Speaker 1: per gallon has been calculated at is vastly more than
2:38
Speaker 1: what you're actually going to get. And um, it's not
2:42
Speaker 1: because the e p A isn't putting cars that it
2:46
Speaker 1: tests through rigorous experiences, right, it's not because they don't care. No,
2:51
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, they don't test almost any
2:56
Speaker 1: of the cars that come out. That's actually left to
2:58
Speaker 1: the auto manufacturers. That was kind of but there. They
3:00
Speaker 1: submit their findings to the e p A for review,
3:03
Speaker 1: and then the e p A, I guess, randomly tests
3:05
Speaker 1: about ten to fift of the new models that are released. Yeah,
3:09
Speaker 1: a little disappointed. I would have thought the would be
3:11
Speaker 1: a little more involved than that. You would think so,
3:13
Speaker 1: but no, not really. They're busy though, busy running around
3:17
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to bring super fun sites
3:20
Speaker 1: back exactly Brown fields um, so chuck. The other I
3:25
Speaker 1: guess big weirdness that has to do with e p
3:29
Speaker 1: a UM fuel efficiency calculations is that cars actually don't
3:35
Speaker 1: ever see the road. True, They're put on what are
3:38
Speaker 1: they called. It's called a It sounds kind of fantastic.
3:41
Speaker 1: It's called dynamometer. Nice dynamometer. Dynamometer, dynamo, Yeah, something like
3:50
Speaker 1: along those lines. Let's call it a fun machine. Actually,
3:52
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a treadmill for a car, is
3:54
Speaker 1: what it is. Right, So the car is actually in
3:56
Speaker 1: a lab being tested. Uh, and it's kind of like
4:00
Speaker 1: Ferris Bueller's Day Off exactly, not in reverse, right. Um,
4:04
Speaker 1: And I guess they have the city They have a
4:07
Speaker 1: city test, which is what Well, both tests involved a
4:12
Speaker 1: professional driver, so this Yeah, I wonder if they get paid. Yeah,
4:16
Speaker 1: that's a good question. Go into the e p A
4:18
Speaker 1: test drive a car for a few minutes. I wonder
4:20
Speaker 1: what everybody gets paid, do you? Oh? Yeah, I'm one
4:22
Speaker 1: of those guys. So yeah, professional driver gets in, uh
4:26
Speaker 1: to simulate depending on which which tests city or or highway,
4:30
Speaker 1: which driving conditions. So the city program, what they do is, uh,
4:35
Speaker 1: they get in, start the engine cold, and then they
4:38
Speaker 1: simulate stop and go traffic idling, that kind of thing.
4:43
Speaker 1: I think. They say eleven miles is how how far
4:46
Speaker 1: they drive, and they make twenty three stops over the
4:50
Speaker 1: course of thirty one minutes. Right, drive an average speed
4:52
Speaker 1: of twenty miles an hour and the top speed of
4:55
Speaker 1: fifty six miles an hour, which is yeah, it seems smart. Yeah, okay,
5:00
Speaker 1: all right, and then the highway test, Uh, you start
5:03
Speaker 1: out with a warm engine, and they drive ten miles
5:06
Speaker 1: with an average speed of forty eight miles per hour
5:08
Speaker 1: and a top speed of sixty miles for about twelve
5:11
Speaker 1: and a half minutes. So let me go ahead and
5:13
Speaker 1: say sixty top speed of the same for me, pal
5:18
Speaker 1: bat out of hell. Uh, And I just drive as
5:22
Speaker 1: fast as I can. And if you are in front
5:24
Speaker 1: of me in the fast lane and you're not driving
5:27
Speaker 1: faster than me, I'm all upon you. You're like the
5:30
Speaker 1: German's pretty much or Winston Wolf. Yeah yeah, not quite
5:34
Speaker 1: as fast as that. But well that's because you don't
5:36
Speaker 1: have a both up that high. No. No, but um okay,
5:40
Speaker 1: So these two tests, this seem logical enough. Here's where
5:43
Speaker 1: things become really illogical and where the discrepancies come from right.
5:47
Speaker 1: The whole time the e p A is conducting these tests,
5:50
Speaker 1: or the auto manufacturers conducting the test. Uh, there is
5:54
Speaker 1: a little sensor jammed in the tail pipe, stuck in there, right,
5:59
Speaker 1: like when you go to do the emissions testing. Sure,
6:01
Speaker 1: and this thing is measuring how much carbon is present
6:05
Speaker 1: in the exhaust. Right. So instead of looking at the
6:09
Speaker 1: tank meter or whatever, the tank meter, what country am
6:14
Speaker 1: I from the gas gage? Yeah, that would be the
6:16
Speaker 1: easy way to do it and just divide. But yeah,
6:18
Speaker 1: they say it is actually more accurate. It is more accurate.
6:21
Speaker 1: The thing is is, I mean, do you drive around
6:23
Speaker 1: with the sensor jamed in your tailpipe? I do not, sir, No,
6:26
Speaker 1: nor do I very clean person, um, and neither do
6:30
Speaker 1: most people, right, correct? Um? So this is why when
6:34
Speaker 1: you go buy a car the miles per gallont calculated
6:38
Speaker 1: are vastly different. That's not the only problem, right, because
6:44
Speaker 1: it's in a lab that automatically changes everything everything. Not
6:48
Speaker 1: only do we not drive around the sensors jammed up
6:50
Speaker 1: our tailpipes, we also don't drive in laboratories on dynamometers.
6:55
Speaker 1: And there are many, many differences between a dynamometer and
6:59
Speaker 1: a lab on the road. We're gonna lick that word
7:02
Speaker 1: before this podcast over uh weather. That's that's a big one.
7:07
Speaker 1: Wind resistance. Most laboratories are indoors, right, different having passengers
7:12
Speaker 1: in your car, having a roof rack with your stupid
7:14
Speaker 1: bike on the back. Weight aerodynamics and that that's that's
7:17
Speaker 1: really probably the biggest one as far as I'm concerned.
7:20
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. The car is not moving,
7:23
Speaker 1: it's just the wheels, right, just the wheels, so there's
7:26
Speaker 1: no drag whatsoever. Like when I'm flying down seventy doing
7:31
Speaker 1: ninety miles per hour and it's hot out, Um, I've
7:34
Speaker 1: got all four of my windows rolled down, and that
7:37
Speaker 1: just devastates fuel efficiency. Yeah, it completely changes the aerodynamic
7:42
Speaker 1: characteristics of the car, which revolvers are kind of boxy
7:46
Speaker 1: to begin with. Um, but yeah, I've noticed my my
7:49
Speaker 1: gas case just go over like twenty miles. I used
7:53
Speaker 1: to I used to drive a Plymouth Valiant. Ever tell
7:55
Speaker 1: you about t my cart? Isn't that the one you
7:59
Speaker 1: drove back from l A. Well, I towed it to
8:02
Speaker 1: l A. It would have you bought it in l A. No,
8:05
Speaker 1: I bought it here and towed it out there. I've
8:06
Speaker 1: never heard of this car. Then, well, it's a great car,
8:09
Speaker 1: but it was one of those old gas guzzlers and
8:11
Speaker 1: this thing, literally, dude, if I was accelerating on the highway,
8:13
Speaker 1: if you looked hard enough, you could see the needle move. Yeah.
8:17
Speaker 1: It was bad. It was real bad. The other things
8:19
Speaker 1: they don't account for, Josh, since we're talking about this
8:22
Speaker 1: is uh what they call jack rabbit starts or lead
8:25
Speaker 1: foot acceleration because that that will burn up your gas quicker.
8:29
Speaker 1: And that's realistic city driving, you know, Oh, definitely. Most
8:32
Speaker 1: people don't just go they go right, you know, he does,
8:38
Speaker 1: He does do that. Chris Cox, our coworker, I see
8:42
Speaker 1: a slow patient driver. Yeah, and I hope you listen
8:44
Speaker 1: to this. You try, Chris, stay out of the fast Laton.
8:50
Speaker 1: Another problem with this test, and and I know it
8:52
Speaker 1: seems like we're saying that there's nothing but problems with
8:54
Speaker 1: this test, but that's because there isn't. Um is that
8:58
Speaker 1: it tends to favor or dramatically favor hybrids, right, because
9:03
Speaker 1: the belief city driving is where the hybrid really gets
9:06
Speaker 1: the most, almost all electric which is produced zero emission.
9:09
Speaker 1: And they this they I guess they haven't adjusted the
9:13
Speaker 1: formula to account for that. So you know, all of
9:16
Speaker 1: a sudden the um, you know, some hybrid cars just
9:19
Speaker 1: getting these incredible miles per gallon ratings when they don't really, Um,
9:26
Speaker 1: there are some some ways around this. Well, before we
9:30
Speaker 1: get to that kind of mention, one more thing. These
9:32
Speaker 1: are brands spanking new cars that they're driving. Oh yes,
9:35
Speaker 1: and not only that they've been broken in properly. There's
9:39
Speaker 1: actually a way, um, that you're supposed to break in
9:42
Speaker 1: a car when you first buy one. UM. And I
9:46
Speaker 1: think it does take place over the course of a
9:47
Speaker 1: couple of thousand miles. But you you want to drive
9:51
Speaker 1: I think no more than sixty and then stop it
9:54
Speaker 1: and it's staggered. There's this whole process to it. It
9:56
Speaker 1: could actually probably take up part of a podcast itself.
9:59
Speaker 1: And I don't know enough about it to go into
10:01
Speaker 1: it because I've never had a new car. No one
10:03
Speaker 1: does that, but that's the way you're supposed to do it.
10:05
Speaker 1: So apparently the e p A does it. So these
10:07
Speaker 1: are brand new cars that have been properly broken in,
10:10
Speaker 1: and so they get maximum fuel efficiency right, And I
10:13
Speaker 1: think the point, I guess my original point was if
10:15
Speaker 1: you I don't remember, you don't maintain your car, and
10:19
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't maintain their car like you
10:22
Speaker 1: probably should. You're gonna get worse gas mileage, right, Plus
10:25
Speaker 1: they don't have any of the electrical system running. No
10:27
Speaker 1: A C. Yeah, well, the tires are perfectly inflated. Basically,
10:32
Speaker 1: this is like what the e p A thinks everybody
10:34
Speaker 1: should be driving, and absolutely no one does. Well, they
10:37
Speaker 1: said they were gonna and we should follow up on this.
10:39
Speaker 1: They said they were gonna start doing more realistic tests
10:44
Speaker 1: in the future. And they said that the future. Yeah,
10:47
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if if that's an effect yet, but
10:49
Speaker 1: they did say they were going to try and start
10:50
Speaker 1: taking some of these more things into account. It's about time,
10:53
Speaker 1: it is, you know. And just look at the gas
10:55
Speaker 1: gates like everybody else, no one cares how much carbon
10:59
Speaker 1: is present in the exhalt save that for the emissions inspection. So, Chuck,
11:04
Speaker 1: as I was saying, yes, cheating the e p A. Yeah,
11:07
Speaker 1: there's some ways to to beat the e PA at
11:09
Speaker 1: their own game, right, well, beat your beat your car
11:12
Speaker 1: its own game or the oil companies. Are you talking
11:15
Speaker 1: about hyper miling? I am Chuck. You know what that is?
11:18
Speaker 1: Hyper miling? Yeah, yeah, sure, Okay, well do you know
11:21
Speaker 1: who coined it? Uh, some dude in Chicago. What's his name?
11:24
Speaker 1: Wayne Gerdis, the King of hyper miling. Yeah, I think.
11:29
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if he won the title or not,
11:30
Speaker 1: but I think he's the world's most fuel efficient driver.
11:33
Speaker 1: I think so too. Yeah, and he is dedicated to it,
11:36
Speaker 1: like I will never hyper mile ever, it just takes
11:40
Speaker 1: too much patience and you're slow. You're the slowest driver
11:44
Speaker 1: on the road and you're hyper mileing, right, you hyper drive? Thanks,
11:47
Speaker 1: that's different, but um it, it definitely improves your your
11:51
Speaker 1: fuel efficiency for sure. Yeah. Let's hear um Edmonds, the
11:56
Speaker 1: car magazine Edmonds. They didn't experiment, and they found at
12:00
Speaker 1: hyper miling you can get an extra thirty more per
12:03
Speaker 1: gallon and that was in a land Rover. Yeah, which
12:07
Speaker 1: guzz And apparently if you hyper mile and like a
12:09
Speaker 1: Toyota Prius, you can bump it up to like a gallon.
12:13
Speaker 1: They say, Yeah, I saw a picture. There was a
12:16
Speaker 1: Mother Jones article on Wayne Gurtis, and they had two
12:20
Speaker 1: shots of these two different dashboards went from a Prius
12:23
Speaker 1: and I think went from an inside or something like that,
12:26
Speaker 1: and these things were clocking like a hundred and fifty
12:28
Speaker 1: miles per gallon. Man, that's nuts. Yeah, it is nuts.
12:31
Speaker 1: And I don't drive I probably, I don't even know.
12:34
Speaker 1: If I put fifty miles a week on my car,
12:36
Speaker 1: maybe seventy five miles a week, you could make a
12:38
Speaker 1: tank of gas last like a year. Like that, I
12:40
Speaker 1: could if I had a Prius, I should do that. Yeah,
12:43
Speaker 1: but I have my old Civic and gets decent gas mileage.
12:46
Speaker 1: But I don't drive enough to invest in a new
12:48
Speaker 1: car at this point. Well, the cool thing about um
12:50
Speaker 1: about hyper milings You don't need a new car. You
12:52
Speaker 1: can do it with any car. It's merely a series
12:55
Speaker 1: of techniques. You don't have to go buy anything. You
12:57
Speaker 1: don't have to do anything except dry. I've pretty conscientiously
13:01
Speaker 1: and be aware of what you're doing, like um, accelerating
13:04
Speaker 1: and breaking too quickly. You were saying, uh that that
13:08
Speaker 1: was the Edmonds test that was based on taking off
13:12
Speaker 1: at a red light or just driving up to your
13:14
Speaker 1: red light and slamming on your brakes. They're both waste
13:16
Speaker 1: of gas. Um, so too is driving on the highway
13:20
Speaker 1: without cruise control. Yeah, I didn't realize that they actually
13:24
Speaker 1: that same test by Edmonds actually vastly improved the fuel
13:28
Speaker 1: efficiency of the land Rover. And I think they tested
13:30
Speaker 1: a Mustang too, But they got the biggest bank for
13:33
Speaker 1: their buck um using cruise control at seventy on the
13:37
Speaker 1: land Rover, Because if you think about it, I mean,
13:40
Speaker 1: even if you're really paying attention to staying at seventy
13:44
Speaker 1: miles an hour, it's still based on your foot and
13:46
Speaker 1: your foot is flawed. It's kind of heavy, clumsy thing.
13:51
Speaker 1: I know you do. I wasn't gonna bring it up. Um, So, yeah,
13:55
Speaker 1: you want to rely on cruise control. Those two things
13:58
Speaker 1: alone will will really increase your fuel efficiency. Driving at
14:03
Speaker 1: lower speeds is a really important thing too. Yeah. Did
14:05
Speaker 1: it didn't say anywhere with what the ideal speed was. No,
14:09
Speaker 1: but I've always heard sixty. Really, I've always heard like
14:12
Speaker 1: thirty five to forty for like the ultimate gas mileage.
14:15
Speaker 1: I'm talking highway, Okay, sure, yeah, you'll get in trouble
14:18
Speaker 1: if you drive thirty. Now that makes sense then yeah,
14:22
Speaker 1: I think in the city though, it's thirty, is it? Yeah? Well,
14:25
Speaker 1: I know that they used to have much Well, I
14:27
Speaker 1: guess today's UM posted speed limits back in the early
14:32
Speaker 1: seventies or late sixties and then because of the oil embargo,
14:36
Speaker 1: that's when they were dropped down to fifty five, was
14:38
Speaker 1: to increase fuel efficiency in cars. And then they've kicked
14:40
Speaker 1: it back up because everybody's like, we want to drive
14:43
Speaker 1: fast again. We don't care about it. We're we're on
14:45
Speaker 1: the highway to hell anyway. Just let us drive as
14:47
Speaker 1: fast as we want. That can't drive fifty five crowd
14:49
Speaker 1: and uh A C apparently is kind of a big one,
14:53
Speaker 1: using it at max power, which is decisive, uncompromising and rude. Yeah,
14:59
Speaker 1: I I don't. My A C doesn't work. As I said,
15:02
Speaker 1: I drive down the highway with the windows open, and
15:05
Speaker 1: that apparently is way worse than driving with your A
15:08
Speaker 1: C on because of the drag. And this guy he
15:11
Speaker 1: also doesn't he coast and cut his engine early if
15:14
Speaker 1: he's approaching a parking space, so he'll he'll coast the
15:18
Speaker 1: last whatever, however far he can to to park his car.
15:22
Speaker 1: And gurtis actually on his site. I think it's clean
15:25
Speaker 1: MPG dot com. If that's not his site, he writes
15:28
Speaker 1: heavily for it. Um he answered an age old question
15:34
Speaker 1: for me. If you are going to be idling for
15:37
Speaker 1: longer than seven seconds, turn your car off because it
15:40
Speaker 1: takes about seven seconds worth of gas to turn a
15:43
Speaker 1: fuel injected car over. He always wondered, Yeah, I've never
15:47
Speaker 1: heard like an whoever told me? I didn't believe. I
15:51
Speaker 1: believe this guy. So if you're sitting like at a
15:53
Speaker 1: at a drive through or something, turn the car off. Yeah,
15:56
Speaker 1: you know that's a great idea. Yeah. And then there's
15:58
Speaker 1: some slightly more advanced techniques for people who are really
16:02
Speaker 1: into this patient people like what like ridge riding. I
16:06
Speaker 1: don't know that that was actually another term coined by
16:10
Speaker 1: Gurtis that. Um, I hope i'm saying his last name, right,
16:13
Speaker 1: I've never met the guy, so okay, um it's where
16:18
Speaker 1: you hug the far right line solid line of the
16:22
Speaker 1: far right lane on the highway. Uh. And one of
16:25
Speaker 1: the there's You do this for two reasons. One is
16:27
Speaker 1: to make yourself really obvious and noticeable the other drivers
16:30
Speaker 1: so they have an opportunity to pass you early because
16:32
Speaker 1: you're going Yeah, because I think he drives like fifty
16:37
Speaker 1: or um So then I was probably wrong about sixty
16:42
Speaker 1: because this guy is probably gonna drive at the optimal
16:44
Speaker 1: speed on the highway. Um. So number one, it makes
16:48
Speaker 1: you obvious because you're not positioned like everybody else. But secondly,
16:52
Speaker 1: in bad weather, especially rain, you're actually taking yourself out
16:56
Speaker 1: of those depressions that have worn into the asphalt with
17:00
Speaker 1: huddles are forming sure running through through water. Yeah I
17:04
Speaker 1: didn't realize that. Yeah, definitely, because your your wheels are moving,
17:07
Speaker 1: but you're not getting anywhere. Yeah, that makes sense. So
17:10
Speaker 1: you you've lost traction. You're a hyper miler, Josh, in
17:13
Speaker 1: a way, I just know a lot about it. Again,
17:15
Speaker 1: I'll never do it right. Uh. And then probably my
17:18
Speaker 1: favorite is distant anticipatory focus d a F. Yes. So
17:24
Speaker 1: Gerti's basically tries to drive like he doesn't have brakes.
17:28
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, he maintains a very slow, steady pace.
17:31
Speaker 1: So he's looking several lights ahead right to uh to
17:35
Speaker 1: time his driving to that light. He's trying to accelerate
17:38
Speaker 1: slowly to to keep in time with these these lights
17:41
Speaker 1: because he wants nothing but green lights. That makes sense.
17:44
Speaker 1: He never has to use his brakes. That saves quite
17:47
Speaker 1: a bit too. Of course, this is the same guy
17:48
Speaker 1: who also turns off his ignition and coats into parking spaces.
17:52
Speaker 1: So yeah, but that's pretty much hyper miling. I mean
17:55
Speaker 1: there's actually a lot more to it, taking advantage of
17:58
Speaker 1: other cars, like using eighteen wheelers to draft off of Yeah,
18:01
Speaker 1: well that's a lot of the NASCAR guys hyper mile.
18:04
Speaker 1: They don't call it that. I don't know what they
18:05
Speaker 1: call it. Someone probably has that answer, but they Yeah,
18:10
Speaker 1: during um, the caution when they have like debris on
18:14
Speaker 1: the track and the pace cars there, Yeah, the little guy,
18:16
Speaker 1: I'll throw out the caution flag and that means everyone's
18:18
Speaker 1: got to slow down until they clean all the crowd
18:20
Speaker 1: off the track, and um, the A lot of the
18:23
Speaker 1: drivers will cut their engines and coast for a while
18:26
Speaker 1: and then cut them back on and then cut them again,
18:29
Speaker 1: and then while they're racing, they will draft. That's a
18:31
Speaker 1: very popular technique to save fuel because in NASCAR, if
18:35
Speaker 1: you the fewer stops the better. Sure, obviously, yeah you
18:39
Speaker 1: Nascar guy, No me neither. I watched it for a while. Remember,
18:43
Speaker 1: I really love the origin of NASCAR bootlegging. Other than that,
18:47
Speaker 1: I'm not really in the NASCAR. My sister in law, Sarah,
18:50
Speaker 1: who I was just with in Ohio, is big in
18:52
Speaker 1: the NASCAR, and we always give her hard time. Yeah,
18:56
Speaker 1: we call her a bead neck and stuff. Yeah, it's good. Well, um,
19:01
Speaker 1: anything about it? No, I mean really until until we
19:04
Speaker 1: come up with an alternative fuel source or you know
19:07
Speaker 1: standard hundred mile an hour or hundred miles per gallon
19:10
Speaker 1: uh cars. It's a good idea hyper mile yeah we
19:14
Speaker 1: should say, though, I think exercise some caution if you
19:17
Speaker 1: want to try this stuff out, because you know some cars,
19:19
Speaker 1: if you turn the key off, don't turn all the
19:21
Speaker 1: way off because you're steering. Roo whe will walk up.
19:23
Speaker 1: It's a good point. And I think sometimes the air
19:25
Speaker 1: brakes are activated when you start the car, right yeah,
19:28
Speaker 1: so I think you want to keep keep it set
19:30
Speaker 1: to ignition or start keep it set to the on
19:33
Speaker 1: position so you can still run your radio. No, so
19:36
Speaker 1: you still see lights on the dashboard, right yeah, So
19:39
Speaker 1: just just be careful if you want to try some
19:41
Speaker 1: experimentation here. You were really good at c O A buddy. Well,
19:45
Speaker 1: I could see somebody have any idea how many times
19:47
Speaker 1: we would have been suedere not for you? And just
19:49
Speaker 1: my mind's eye had just pictured someone saying Josh and
19:52
Speaker 1: Chuck said to cut my engine, and all of a sudden,
19:54
Speaker 1: like who is this Josh and Chuck, they go to
19:56
Speaker 1: pull into the car to the parking space and they're
19:59
Speaker 1: steering wheel lock sup and have a record six miles
20:02
Speaker 1: an hour. Well good, all right, that's hyper miling. And
20:05
Speaker 1: e p A. Well, we'll keep an eye out to
20:07
Speaker 1: see if the e p A actually does do any
20:09
Speaker 1: real world testing. Good idea. Let's se listener mail, I
20:14
Speaker 1: think so okay, nowhere to go, but up right, Josh,
20:20
Speaker 1: we are going to call this what was in my
20:23
Speaker 1: inbox before I came in listener mail. Awesome, that's a secret. Actually,
20:28
Speaker 1: I shouldn't ever revealed that the good way to get
20:30
Speaker 1: a listener mails to email me the day we record.
20:33
Speaker 1: It's not a secret anymore. This is about the Peter principal.
20:36
Speaker 1: Remember we did a podcast about the fact that many
20:40
Speaker 1: companies will not demote somebody, that will just fire somebody
20:44
Speaker 1: if they're incompetent. And this is from Jennifer and she
20:47
Speaker 1: says that she worked for the same company, has still
20:52
Speaker 1: working there for five or six years, and last November
20:55
Speaker 1: she was worked her way up to the top of
20:57
Speaker 1: sales support and she was kicked down to reception instead
21:01
Speaker 1: of fired. And she was told about her new job
21:05
Speaker 1: and said that she was getting the demotion because she
21:07
Speaker 1: was the weakest person on the team and a little harsh,
21:10
Speaker 1: I thought so. And she asked him during the meeting
21:13
Speaker 1: why didn't they just fire her? And they said because
21:16
Speaker 1: she was still a very important part of the teams.
21:19
Speaker 1: It's the worst part of the team. Exactly, very important
21:24
Speaker 1: part of our team, but the worst part. Don't forget that, uh.
21:27
Speaker 1: And she said that um, her pay didn't change, so
21:30
Speaker 1: she's actually a very high paid receptionist and um actually
21:34
Speaker 1: makes more than a lot of people on the sales
21:36
Speaker 1: team now at the reception desk, which I'll bet the
21:38
Speaker 1: sales team just loves. And we actually did have someone
21:41
Speaker 1: else emailed another company that said that they practiced this
21:44
Speaker 1: as well. Well, that's fantastic. Two out of several hundred thousand, Yeah,
21:47
Speaker 1: not too bad. And she also adds here at the
21:50
Speaker 1: end that we sometimes give shout outs to our men
21:53
Speaker 1: and women overseas for fighting and Iraq and Afghanistan and
21:57
Speaker 1: to support them. And she says that she's an Air
21:58
Speaker 1: Force wife and that we should mention families occasionally they're
22:02
Speaker 1: left behind because it's very hard on them, do it, Chuck.
22:05
Speaker 1: And my brother in law is in the Marine Corps
22:07
Speaker 1: and he has been deployed many times. My sister Michelle
22:10
Speaker 1: and her kids shall be in Reagan or often left
22:14
Speaker 1: at home for months at a time, and it is
22:15
Speaker 1: hard on the family. So when we say support the troops,
22:19
Speaker 1: we mean the whole family, the whole kid and can
22:20
Speaker 1: do it nicely, don't chuck, Thank you nicely. Good. That's it. Well,
22:24
Speaker 1: if you want to Mia Colpa out of chuck, you
22:26
Speaker 1: can email us at stuff podcast at how stuff works
22:31
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
22:39
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how
22:42
Speaker 1: stuff works, check out our blogs on the house. Stuff
22:44
Speaker 1: works dot com home page. Brought to you by the
22:49
Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, are you