One way to save gas is to make sure your tires are properly inflated. You can even go so far as to sign up for consumerreports.org and search for tires that have low rolling resistance. The idea is that the easier your tires roll, the better mileage you get. Tires that are underinflated do not roll as well.

Another way we could save gas is to revisit the timing of traffic signals in this city. The fact that you can drive 20 blocks on Washington Avenue and hit a red light every two blocks is ridiculous. A lot of these semaphores haven't been adjusted for decades and they hinder traffic flow. Cars burn most of their fuel when accelerating, and idling at stop lights doesn't help. And don't forget the additional noise of accelerating engines and the additional stress and drive time of waiting in traffic. The city of Phoenix has already spent millions to adjust their traffic signal timing and the result is that you can time your driving to hit only green lights; it is time the Twin Cities likewise invest in adapting the timing of our traffic signals to current demographics and traffic patterns. Maybe after the small-minded Pawlenty is out of office we could start investing in the future again.

Back to tires, I bought a set of Cooper Zeon 2XS tires for my car a couple of years ago. I had no experience with Cooper, but that was the only brand the service shop I took the car to had. I decided to take a leap and try them. At first they were fine. They handled nicely and all that. But a year in they started losing air pressure and I would have to put air in them weekly. Lately I've noticed cracking and bulging in the sidewalls and the road handling is nowhere near what it was or should be.

Well coincidentally I read about a recall of 288,000 Cooper tires, including some Zeon 2XS's. The reason for the recall is exactly the same problem that I have, but the size on my car is not among the sizes they are recalling.

The reason for this tire rant is because I have since registered the tires with Cooper in hopes that they would somehow be including them in the recall. On Saturday, May 13, 2006 I sent them an email asking how to go about making a warrantly claim to get them replaced. So far, no response. Unfortunately, I am losing confidence in the tires and, at $150 each, I don't want to pay to have them replaced. Given the lack of response and the difficulty I have had in finding proper contact information (anyone have a fukkin phone number for warranty claims?), coupled with the fact that the tires are failing prematurely, it will be hard for me to find a reason to buy Cooper tires again. I guess I'll have to try working the phones after I get back from Germany in June to see what I can accomplish.

Yeah, so I am really familiar with gas station air pumps now. Holiday Station is the only chain that has free air any more it seems, but the problem is there is always some dipshit there trying to work the thing. It is not uncommon to wait 15 minutes for someone to fuck around with the hose and a pressure gauge before you can get in there. Shit, high gas prices aren't a problem, it is fuckin air that I need.

Now I'm in a bad mood. Let me get back to something new and interesting. I've been reading about hybrid cars lately, since Consumer Reports released their review of some of the models. I've been waiting for this because there has been a lot of marketing hype but very little in the way of actual analysis.

No surprise, but the Honda Civic hybrid and the Toyota Prius are the best hybrids. What I suspected and what Consumer Reports confirmed is that the price premium you pay for a hybrid may not be worth it. Something like a Camry or Accord hybrid is actually marketed as a premium model, with the electric motor providing for additional performance. The Lexus RX400h, an SUV, sees very little benefit from it. I think this is why the German and US automakers have not jumped on the bandwagon yet. A luxury car has so much weight and electronic gadgetry that there is little juice left for an electric motor. A big American car would need a bigger electric motor and more heavy batteries to make a difference.

With the Prius and the Civic hybrid, the additional cost of the car offsets all or most of the savings in gas. This does not include the cost of replacing the batteries, which could run $3000. Just like the battery under the hood of your conventional gasoline car, the hybrid batteries have a life span. Considering that hybrid models cost $3000-$5000 more than their conventional counterparts and 5-10 years in you will be spending $3000 on new batteries, only the smaller models make sense to buy and only if you drive a lot in the city.

Hopefully the economies of scale will improve with hybrids, but in the mean time it is worth looking at the more efficient Japanese gasonline-only cars or the TDI (diesel) models from Volkswagen. There is talk among some other manufacturers, maybe Volvo or Mercedes, in bringing some of their diesel models to the US market too. Diesel engines are a bit more efficient than gasoline engines. Toyota and Honda have outstanding fuel economy in most of their cars too, so personally I would stick with one of those or a TDI and try to drive less to save gas.

I really should get back to work, but one more bit about hybrids. There are people who outfit their Priuses with extra batteries and charging circuitry so that they can plug the car in at night to charge it up. This costs on the order of $20,000 to do. The car then runs mostly on electric power, with the gasoline engine serving only as a backup for long trips. In cold weather I would expect the gasoline engine to kick in more frequently, since batteries have lower capacity in cold weather. But in the long term I hope cars that can run like this will be available directly from the manufacturer. With improved battery technology, it could become viable. It would be possible to charge your car at night when it is sitting in the garage (sorta like running your waching maching all night as far as power consumption) and you'd only have to fill your gas tank every couple of months or so. Yak yak yak...