[GreenMonster]

Today's drive to work was one of my best ever! I got behind a very boxy truck, but I don't know what it was. It was all black and had no markings at all on it and Tennessee license? Weird. Anyway it went about 50 in the slow lane and never broke stride. I rode the slip steam just close enough to have time to brake if needed and I kept a glance behind me too ?

 

[jeff_h]

 

[llninja]

Black truck with no markings... sounds like an FBI stakeout truck. They're probably trying to figure out how you broke their cover and will be breaking into your place in the middle of the night to take you to some undisclosed location for interrogatoin.....

 

[srmarti]

Guess that ticket you paid wasn't enough to change your mind. Maybe you'll have to lose your "laser focus" and damage something before it sinks in.

 

[Raymondjram]

Today's drive to work was one of my best ever! I got behind a very boxy truck, but I don't know what it was. It was all black and had no markings at all on it and Tennessee license? Weird. Anyway it went about 50 in the slow lane and never broke stride. I rode the slip steam just close enough to have time to brake if needed and I kept a glance behind me too ?

That was a great efficiency for the range: 7.6 miles per kWh of energy. If you had advanced cruise control and automatic braking, your Volt could had kept the minimum distance behind the truck all the way, all by itself.

I remember reading an experiment done by Popular Mechanics (later proven by the Mythbusters) where a small Ford followed an Excursion with the tailgate doors open (it has a "Dutch oven" style), and by that drafting the PM guys doubled the MPG of the smaller Ford. I wonder if a future EV can use its safety features to do its own drafting behind any larger vehicle, unless it is unlawful in some States.

But seriously, someone should do a similar experiment with a large truck and a Chevy Volt drafting it with a full battery charge, and see if it can get over 5 miles per kWh, or over 100 miles of EV range, then post it and see if any other plug-in EV or hybrid can do it better. You could probably do even over 600 of EV and gas miles, too.

 

[srmarti]

That was a great efficiency for the range: 7.6 miles per kWh of energy. If you had advanced cruise control and automatic braking, your Volt could had kept the minimum distance behind the truck all the way, all by itself.

I remember reading an experiment done by Popular Mechanics (later proven by the Mythbusters) where a small Ford followed an Excursion with the tailgate doors open (it has a "Dutch oven" style), and by that drafting the PM guys doubled the MPG of the smaller Ford. I wonder if a future EV can use its safety features to do its own drafting behind any larger vehicle, unless it is unlawful in some States.

But seriously, someone should do a similar experiment with a large truck and a Chevy Volt drafting it with a full battery charge, and see if it can get over 5 miles per kWh, or over 100 miles of EV range, then post it and see if any other plug

I've seen comments about autonomous cars using drafting the lead car as one of the advantages of the technology. I don't think we're there yet and most certainly humans aren't good enough to do it safely.

 

[Joe67]

Guess that ticket you paid wasn't enough to change your mind. Maybe you'll have to lose your "laser focus" and damage something before it sinks in.

LOL Some peoples be slower than others

 

[llninja]

That was a great efficiency for the range: 7.6 miles per kWh of energy. If you had advanced cruise control and automatic braking, your Volt could had kept the minimum distance behind the truck all the way, all by itself.

I remember reading an experiment done by Popular Mechanics (later proven by the Mythbusters) where a small Ford followed an Excursion with the tailgate doors open (it has a "Dutch oven" style), and by that drafting the PM guys doubled the MPG of the smaller Ford. I wonder if a future EV can use its safety features to do its own drafting behind any larger vehicle, unless it is unlawful in some States.

But seriously, someone should do a similar experiment with a large truck and a Chevy Volt drafting it with a full battery charge, and see if it can get over 5 miles per kWh, or over 100 miles of EV range, then post it and see if any other plug-in EV or hybrid can do it better. You could probably do even over 600 of EV and gas miles, too.

The concept of platooning will probably be more useful in a city environment to help reduce stop and go traffic jams. It's infuriating to sit at a light, watch the first car go, then the second, then the third and by the time it gets to you, the light turns red again. If all cars had sensors and the platooning feature where they could all talk to each other, the light turns red, all the cars start at once, and slowly spread out as speed increases. Or better yet, if people get used to the concept, all the cars could drive up to full speed bumper to bumper like NASCAR and automatically make room if you needed to change lanes to exit the platoon. But there's a part of me that is scared to death of these autopiloting systems. We tend to like to blame others instead of the person in the mirror for things in hopes of winning a giant lawsuit so we can live a life of leisure.

Without autopilot, the driver is clearly to blame. Now with fully automated driving systems, there's a lot of liability on that software developer. What happens if the laws of physics causes the vehicle to choose one bad event over another. The courtrooms will be filled with cases trying to go after the companies who are trying to innovate.

 

[Insight Refugee]

From many miles in the Insight on the highway, a loaded car carrier seems to be the best drafting partner. I think it's because the rear is the trailer is so low.

Also, because the Fuel Consumption Display on the Insight is so sensitive, I learned that you can get drafting benefits while following at a safe distance. While it's true that maximum fuel savings require tailgating, you can still get a benefit at a safe distance.

Safety>Economy

 

[Qinsp]

It was a cold and rainy night, and I was soaked to the skin. I drafted so close to a semi truck that I could pull the clutch in on my 305cc Honda Scrambler and it would tow me along. Note, this is under 5 feet away. Do not try this at home.

Yes, it will suck you in if you get close enough.

 

[SSonnentag]

It was a cold and rainy night, and I was soaked to the skin. I drafted so close to a semi truck that I could pull the clutch in on my 305cc Honda Scrambler and it would tow me along. Note, this is under 5 feet away. Do not try this at home.

Yes, it will suck you in if you get close enough.

Wow! Never heard of anyone trying that before.

 

[Norton]

Today's drive to work was one of my best ever! ... I rode the slip steam ....

You must get closer and drive even slower to save on those expensive electrons !!

 

[Loboc]

You must get closer and drive even slower to save on those expensive electrons !!

Lol. My thinking exactly. It costs me ~80c/day to do my commute. How much would I save by constantly getting to work late and possibly plowing into a truck? Not to mention the black lung from following a diesel.

I just use ACC and drive whatever speed everyone else is driving in the lane that gets me there. These people that constantly change lanes to get 20-yards ahead cause a bunch of accidents. So, someone 'jumps' in front of me. So what? I usually catch/pass them by the time I get to work.

 

[Qinsp]

Wow! Never heard of anyone trying that before.

When you can't feel your face or hands, you don't always think straight.

 

[Triarius]

If there is a big rig doing 75 on the highway in the summer, I'll always hop behind it and burn 30% less fuel even at a safe standoff distance. Normally they aren't going as fast as I want to though. Your typical modern passenger car has notably better braking performance than a big truck, which means it is a lot safer for a car to drive behind a truck than it is for a truck to drive at the same distance behind a car. Just pay attention.

 

[llninja]

If there is a big rig doing 75 on the highway in the summer, I'll always hop behind it and burn 30% less fuel even at a safe standoff distance. Normally they aren't going as fast as I want to though. Your typical modern passenger car has notably better braking performance than a big truck, which means it is a lot safer for a car to drive behind a truck than it is for a truck to drive at the same distance behind a car. Just pay attention.

How far back can you be behind a semi and still be in the sweet spot of the draft?

 

[Tomt]

Reaction time is the killer here (literally)! At 70 MPH, you will have traveled a little over 50 feet in the typical 1/2 second reaction time. BOOM!

Your typical modern passenger car has notably better braking performance than a big truck, which means it is a lot safer for a car to drive behind a truck than it is for a truck to drive at the same distance behind a car.

 

[SSonnentag]

Reaction time is the killer here (literally)! At 70 MPH, you will have traveled a little over 50 feet in the typical 1/2 second reaction time. BOOM!

But the truck has travelled 49 feet as well. No boom.

 

[KenC]

Wow, awesome, under normal driving you'd have used 6.0kWh, so you saved about 2.2kWh, or for me, that'd be 31 cents. Not quite a cup of joe. Then again, you went 50mph, instead of whatever you'd normally do on the highway, so you took longer to get to work. Time is money. 29 miles at 50mph, is 36mins, where that'd only be 25mins at 70mph, so you spent an extra 11mins driving. If you get paid $25/hr, then that time has a marginal value of about $5. Oops, a net loss.

 

[KenC]

If there is a big rig doing 75 on the highway in the summer, I'll always hop behind it and burn 30% less fuel even at a safe standoff distance. Normally they aren't going as fast as I want to though. Your typical modern passenger car has notably better braking performance than a big truck, which means it is a lot safer for a car to drive behind a truck than it is for a truck to drive at the same distance behind a car. Just pay attention.

So, what I want to know is how close can ACC be set? Can you set ACC then check your "follow distance" to see what the time difference is?