So I know driving takes gas, and having my lights on costs battery power. But somehow driving charges the battery? Does that cost me extra gas? And what actually costs me gas also? Does standing still with the motor on cost me gas? If I have heating on max? If I have airco on max? What kind of driving costs more or less gas? I am so confused with this all. I dont feel like I am doing anything insane in my car, but still the total amount of km I can drive varies so much on a full gas tank. It goes from 600 to 400 and I have no idea why. I hope there is someone who can explain this to me
In: Engineering
A lot of these answers are good, but they’re a little confusing, here’s a simpler explanation. Your car has an idle throttle, it’s the minimum throttle required to keep the engine spinning, I’ll explain the concept of throttle in a second. If the engine is spinning, it’s consuming gas. Tied into your engine are a series of belts/chains, these transfer rotational power to other parts of your car. Within every car, there’s a tiny electric generator called an “alternator”, this charges the car’s battery as it runs, this is run off of a belt attached to the engine output shaft.
I’m going to assume you’re speaking of more modern fuel-injected cars rather than carbureted. When you push on the gas peddle, it tells your Electronic Control Unit, ECU, to increases the rotation of your fuel pump, which provides more fuel to your fuel rail(s), and puts more fuel into the cylinders. This results in a larger explosion and more power and more RPMs for your engine. The harder you stand on it, the more fuel goes in.
Now, back to the electricals. Not everything runs directly off the battery, some are in-line with the alternator. Interesting thing about electrical generation, it’s all the same, magnets spinning inside a ring of other magnets. But how much electricity being demanded makes it harder to spin that inner ring, the inner ring of your alternator. This means that if you’re using a lot of electrical power in your car, the engine has to work harder to get you to the same speed, meaning you have to push the gas pedal harder, meaning you’re spending more gas.
However, depending on the car, this is nearly negligible. My old, old, old, ’92 Honda civic would noticeably chug with the AC on, but it produced maybe 80HP. The bigger the engine, the less noticeable this is.
If you want full on gas savings, accelerate slowly, stay in the highest gear that you reasonably can (Don’t pop it in 5th at 30km/h), keep the windows up and don’t run the AC. The heat runs off excess heat from the engine coolant, so you’re fine there. But it’s such a tiny saving, it’s better to be comfortable while driving.
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