Gadgetory

I don't believe me when you go to the gas pump but actually it's true cars are getting better mpg then even a handful of years ago I'm Brian Cooley with the top-five latest reasons why that's the case we're gonna rank these guys by the percentage improvement each one is made in how much your car guzzles number five a multi-stage oil pump total savings about one percent yeah we're starting small here the idea here is an oil pump that only pumps as much oil as the engine needs radical idea because most oil pumps today are dumb and they just pump more oil as the engine revs higher not as it needs more oil and lubrication the upside here is the engine spends less time turning all the load against a pump and more of its fuel moving your car down the road which is what you want it to do number four CV tees and dcts six to seven percent improvement continuously variable transmission that's the first one and dual clutch transmission that's the second one have become much more common lately the former saves fuel by keeping the engine running at the perfect sweet spot the latter by always having a locked engagement of the gears like a manual transmission because it is it just does the shifting for you number three active cylinder management about seven-and-a-half percent improvement you may have a six or a v8 in your car but that doesn't mean you need one all the time engines with active cylinder management can shut down say half their cylinders when not needed it's not a new technology but now it works so seamlessly you won't even know it's happening and if it sounds wimpy and green know that it's standard on the new Corvette Stingray for example that's part of how it does 455 horsepower and 29 mpg on the highway number two brake regeneration about an eight percent savings hybrids have always done this but they no longer own the technology many conventional gas engine BMWs for example today recharge their battery by harnessing the kinetic energy of the car when it's coasting or braking instead of always driving this draggy alternator with a less drag on the engine means better efficiency before I get to number one and Wow what an improvement it makes I just know you're adding up all these numbers in your head saying hey Cooley if these numbers are right cars would be getting an average of 50 mpg right about now well here's the problem we prefer comfort safety and speed to go with our fuel efficiency on MIT survey found that between 1980 and 2006 mpg went up 15% on average but at the same time cars average weight went up 26% and performance 107 percent had those last two numbers set still mpg would have been up a giant 60 percent and yep we'd be averaging somewhere close to 50 in most cars ok our number one fuel saving technology that's really gaining some traction lately is clean diesel this is the big one thirty to thirty five percent more efficient diesel engines get a lot more energy out of each drop of fuel largely thanks to the fact that they compress it more for a bigger bang no other technology has such a huge Delta the downside Americans hate Diesel's we still think that they are slow stinky loud and smoky I've driven a lot of the latest ones they are none of those things and you probably still don't care to stay on top of more fuel-efficient technologies as they come down the road and all other tech around cars go to CNET on cars calm I'm Bryan Cooley thanks for watching