Soccer Nuts Wasting Fuel with Flags
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06.10.08
It is the Euro 2008 soccer championships and this city is going nuts. Every second car on the street is festooned with little flags; perhaps they shouldn't be. Engineers are quoted in the Guardian as saying that that the flags, which are usually attached to window frames, cause wind resistance, which alters a car's aerodynamics and causes it to burn more fuel.
The Austrian car club says "attaching two flags to a car leads to an increased petrol consumption of "up to half a litre a kilometre on motorways and rural stretches".
The Germans accuse the Austrians of being spoilsports. "As Austria has no chance of victory, it would appear they're trying to make this into a problem for Germany. The eco party poopers have managed to declare even football a climate-killer ... there are no sacred cows any more when it comes to the climate debate."
In this case, the Germans might have a point. Half a litre per kilometer is about a 5% hit on fuel efficiency; can a couple of dinky flags do that? UPDATE: no, I am off in my decimal points. it is a 500% hit on fuel efficiency. Something isn't right at the Austrian Car Club. UPDATE: a German reader informs us that the original article claimed "Auf Überlandfahrten oder auf der Autobahn können die Fan-Mobile ungefähr einen halben Liter mehr Kraftstoff auf 100 Kilometer verbrauchen." or half a liter per 100 kilometers, or a 5% hit on performance. ::Guardian
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My car claims to get 41 mpg, which, if my maths is correct is approximately 16km/litre. Are you therefore saying that if I attach flags to my car, I will be getting 2km/litre (extra 1/2 litre per km)?? Seems to me that is an 800% hit on fuel efficiency, and pretty unrealistic from 2 little flags. Towing a couple of painted elephants perhaps?
What? I get 28mpg... or something like 18 kilometers/liter... that is I use 0.08 liters per kilometer. Attaching two little flags is going to more than quintuple my fuel use?
Perhaps they meant to say it would reduce fuel efficiency by 0.5 k/liter. That would at least be in the realm of possible.
The speaker did not understand what they were talking about.
I would say that they mean an extra half a litre per 100km as litres/100km is the most common fuel economy measurement. Hence a car that normally averages 10 litres/100km would average 10.5 litres/100km with flags attached. That is actually quite plausible. I expect to see this on mythbuster in the coming months!
Hmmm... causing damage by attaching some small flags onto cars for an event?
Yeah... thats something to discuss...
Maybe we should make it illigal for a dog to stick its head out the windows too...
Okay now THAT peaked my interest!
Let's check the (easy-go) math:
3.8 litres make up 1 gallon
1.6 kilometres make up 1 mile
0.5 litres per km means 0.13 gals per km
or:
0.208 gals/mile
roughly 1/5 gallon per mile (correct so far??)
Now my station wagon does about 20 mpg. (Sorry to say....)
Anyways, if I wanna know what percentage .208 gals do to my fuel efficiency, I come up with 1.05 %
20 (mpg) = 100 %
.208 (gals) = x %
Please enlighten me if this is wrong but I feel that a strong headwind can set you back a HECK OF A WHOLE LOT MORE than some lousy flags ;-)
That being said, I will gladly remove that stupid roof rack which I never ever used and see how I will improve!
Keep truckin' !
The figure is entirely possible as the car in the photo is a circa 1984 Rover from British Layand and by now probably drinks a litre of petrol per kilometer. They had Buick engines and leaked oil as fast as you could pour it in. Better to junk the car and save the planet (junk = recycle with a smile).
Hi.. I, myself being from Germany, think you got it a little wrong.. Usually, we measure a car's efficienry in liters per 100 km. At least, thats what the same expert says in the german online-bible for daily news, www.spiegel.de
http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/0,1518,555742,00.html
Quote:
Auf Überlandfahrten oder auf der Autobahn können die Fan-Mobile ungefähr einen halben Liter mehr Kraftstoff auf 100 Kilometer verbrauchen.
That's the exact same sentence you quoted, only in german. Someone must have forgotten to translate the "per 100 km".
(0,5 litres per 100 km are 0.2126 gallons per 100 american miles)
Still, I like my footy, but I'm not the flag-waving kind of guy.
Bye!
Tim
Hello all,
actually, your're not supposed to use these flags while driving at higher speeds. They break! And a flag in the gutter's just too sad.
I've been flying mine (go Germany!) only inside city limits and I've found no measurable worsening of fuel consumption.
Greetings from the Ruhr,
Ingrid
I was in London a few years back and they were doing the same thing. I found 3 English flags laying on the ground.
THOSE HOOLIGANS MUST BE STOPPED
At 50km/h you won't have an 5% impact. And that's how fast you are allowed to drive with those flags attached to your vehicle.
On a more serious note, I think there are much better ways of conserving fuel than this. We don't need to prevent /every/ form of waste; at some point come diminishing returns.
Examples of personal expression such as this are the last thing we should be worried about.
As an American in Holland, I find this Euro thing quite entertaining! Almost as entertaining as the whinging commentary on BBC during EuroVision...
I thought the complaint was going to be about fans that drive around aimlessly honking their horns after victory. I think that would waste more fuel than those little flags.
This is of nearly no consequence if you consider not inflating your tires properly will give you comparable results in gas mileage:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/maintain.shtml