The top level navigation says a lot about this site:-
Find and Compare Cars
Gas Mileage Tips
Gasoline Prices
Your MPG Will Vary
Why is Fuel Economy Important?
Your MPG
Hybrids, Diesels, Alt Fuels, Etc.
Tax Incentives
Extreme MPG
Clearly this site is focused on "cars".. and cars that burn a 'fuel'. Where are motorcycles (which are known to be more fuel efficient)? Where are electric vehicles? Where is information on mass transit? And what is the point of listing gasoline prices? Okay, gasoline prices are on a lot of peoples minds and perhaps are the driving factor behind a lot of people looking for fuel efficient vehicles.
Why be fuel efficient? Their suggestions are are pretty decent and hits all the right points.
a) Saves You Money: Using a fuel efficient vehicle means using less fuel to accomplish the same travel, which means buying less fuel, which means you spend less money to accomplish your travel. As fuel prices rise the cost is more noticeable than when fuel prices are low.
b) Strengthens National Energy Security: Here the argument is to look at oil production from domestic sources versus imported oil sources. There is a growing gap in the percentage of imported oil. Given the deep addiction the U.S. has to oil, foreign powers have an inordinate power over the financial stability of the U.S. Through controlling the price for oil they can deeply influence the U.S. But the fueleconomy.gov site doesn't describe this issue very clearly, instead they pussyfoot around it.
c) Protects the Environment: Their page on the environment only focuses on climate change. To the extent that burned fossil fuel affects climate change this is accurate, but what of the other negative effects from burning fossil fuels? The production and use of fossil fuels puts other poisonous chemicals into the environment, from well to wheel there are negative effects every step of the way.
d) Conserves Resources: Here's where they could explain more about the reality of available oil, such as the peak oil model. But they do not. They could connect the rising percentage of imported to domestic oil, but they do not.
Their Gas mileage tips are pretty good. Driving more efficiently is possible by keeping speed moderate, don't race around, etc. By keeping your car in shape it can operate more efficiently, such as keeping the tires properly inflated. Making better choices of when and where to drive is a good idea. Choosing a more efficient car will obviously save much more fuel than buying a humongo-SUV.
What they do not mention are non-Car choices. Like walking, mass transit, bicycling, motorcycles, etc. There are plenty of ways to transport your butt around town which do not involve a car and which are more energy efficient. Their focus here is on how to increase fuel efficiency of driving a car, but what about improving overall energy efficiency? To accomplish, for example, a daily commute which is more efficient? Being a solo driver driving a Prius to the office? Or walking to a train station, riding a train to the station near your office, and walking from the train to the office? Or maybe your office is only a couple miles away? Riding a bicycle is perfect for a short trip under five miles, so why not use a bicycle for something utilitarian like the daily commute?
Their Gas prices area offers a good set of statistics and resources to find better gas prices. To focus on gas prices is to miss many of the reasons to be fuel efficient (see the above).
Many factors affect miles/gallon explains various reasons why the efficiency you see with your car may differ from the official measurement. This is pretty good and can give you some ideas for further efficiency improvements.
They have a guide to 'alternative fueled' vehicles that covers hybrid, diesel, flex fuel, electric, fuel cell cars and more. Each of these has a selection guide among models available in the U.S. Well, this is true for those vehicles that are widely sold in the U.S. They do not have a selection guide for electric or fuel cell cars. And again they're ignoring non-Car alternatives.
They have a list of Energy efficient technologies which are aftermarket modifications you can make to a car to make it more efficient. It's useful to see this comparison.
What about the relative efficiency of an electric drive train versus an internal combustion drive train? Electric motors are highly efficient (90%) versus the extremely poor efficiency of internal combustion engines. Why is this information resource focusing on fuel burning cars when it's clear an electric vehicle would be more energy efficient?
Their Fuel economy guide is again focused on "cars" as the solution to transportation need, and specifically fuel burning cars. It is a useful summarization of the information on their site and does give a listing of fuel economy for several classifications of fuel burning cars.
Clearly the fuel economy guide is a useful resource to help you improve efficiency in your fuel burning car. But it does nothing to help you understand the alternatives outside that narrow range of transportation choices.
The top level navigation says a lot about this site:-
Find and Compare Cars
Gas Mileage Tips
Gasoline Prices
Your MPG Will Vary
Why is Fuel Economy Important?
Your MPG
Hybrids, Diesels, Alt Fuels, Etc.
Tax Incentives
Extreme MPG
Clearly this site is focused on "cars".. and cars that burn a 'fuel'. Where are motorcycles (which are known to be more fuel efficient)? Where are electric vehicles? Where is information on mass transit? And what is the point of listing gasoline prices? Okay, gasoline prices are on a lot of peoples minds and perhaps are the driving factor behind a lot of people looking for fuel efficient vehicles.
Why be fuel efficient? Their suggestions are are pretty decent and hits all the right points.
a) Saves You Money: Using a fuel efficient vehicle means using less fuel to accomplish the same travel, which means buying less fuel, which means you spend less money to accomplish your travel. As fuel prices rise the cost is more noticeable than when fuel prices are low.
b) Strengthens National Energy Security: Here the argument is to look at oil production from domestic sources versus imported oil sources. There is a growing gap in the percentage of imported oil. Given the deep addiction the U.S. has to oil, foreign powers have an inordinate power over the financial stability of the U.S. Through controlling the price for oil they can deeply influence the U.S. But the fueleconomy.gov site doesn't describe this issue very clearly, instead they pussyfoot around it.
c) Protects the Environment: Their page on the environment only focuses on climate change. To the extent that burned fossil fuel affects climate change this is accurate, but what of the other negative effects from burning fossil fuels? The production and use of fossil fuels puts other poisonous chemicals into the environment, from well to wheel there are negative effects every step of the way.
d) Conserves Resources: Here's where they could explain more about the reality of available oil, such as the peak oil model. But they do not. They could connect the rising percentage of imported to domestic oil, but they do not.
Their Gas mileage tips are pretty good. Driving more efficiently is possible by keeping speed moderate, don't race around, etc. By keeping your car in shape it can operate more efficiently, such as keeping the tires properly inflated. Making better choices of when and where to drive is a good idea. Choosing a more efficient car will obviously save much more fuel than buying a humongo-SUV.
What they do not mention are non-Car choices. Like walking, mass transit, bicycling, motorcycles, etc. There are plenty of ways to transport your butt around town which do not involve a car and which are more energy efficient. Their focus here is on how to increase fuel efficiency of driving a car, but what about improving overall energy efficiency? To accomplish, for example, a daily commute which is more efficient? Being a solo driver driving a Prius to the office? Or walking to a train station, riding a train to the station near your office, and walking from the train to the office? Or maybe your office is only a couple miles away? Riding a bicycle is perfect for a short trip under five miles, so why not use a bicycle for something utilitarian like the daily commute?
Their Gas prices area offers a good set of statistics and resources to find better gas prices. To focus on gas prices is to miss many of the reasons to be fuel efficient (see the above).
Many factors affect miles/gallon explains various reasons why the efficiency you see with your car may differ from the official measurement. This is pretty good and can give you some ideas for further efficiency improvements.
They have a guide to 'alternative fueled' vehicles that covers hybrid, diesel, flex fuel, electric, fuel cell cars and more. Each of these has a selection guide among models available in the U.S. Well, this is true for those vehicles that are widely sold in the U.S. They do not have a selection guide for electric or fuel cell cars. And again they're ignoring non-Car alternatives.
They have a list of Energy efficient technologies which are aftermarket modifications you can make to a car to make it more efficient. It's useful to see this comparison.
What about the relative efficiency of an electric drive train versus an internal combustion drive train? Electric motors are highly efficient (90%) versus the extremely poor efficiency of internal combustion engines. Why is this information resource focusing on fuel burning cars when it's clear an electric vehicle would be more energy efficient?
Their Fuel economy guide is again focused on "cars" as the solution to transportation need, and specifically fuel burning cars. It is a useful summarization of the information on their site and does give a listing of fuel economy for several classifications of fuel burning cars.
Clearly the fuel economy guide is a useful resource to help you improve efficiency in your fuel burning car. But it does nothing to help you understand the alternatives outside that narrow range of transportation choices.
In todays context we face two major challenges both of which stem largely from the abundance of gasoline driven cars on American roads. On one hand the U.S. and the world is facing high oil prices a looming shortage of oil as oil fields around the world go into depletion. On another hand the whole world is facing a global environmental catastrophe that's destabilizing environmental conditions world-wide. On yet another hand (we must be from Mars) the U.S. style of building cities is wasteful of land and ties our hands to possible solutions because of the highway infrastructure. There is a huge need for change in the transportation technologies common in the U.S.
Why specifically the U.S.? It's that factoid, that we have 6% of the worlds population, have 3% of the worlds oil, yet use 25% of the worlds resources, and consequently do a huge portion of the worlds environmental damage.
Wasteful of land? The highway system, as a way to transport people from place to place, is very flexible but at the same time has a very low density of people per square mile of road surface. By contrast any mass transit system has a much higher density of people per square mile. The issue is the need for cars to maintain a safe following distance. Cars on a highway must be far enough apart so they can stop if the car ahead of them needs to stop.
Looming oil shortage? I'll just say 'peak oil'... It's a scientific model that describes the depletion of oil fields and the inability, as a field ages, for oil companies to extract more oil from the field. This model shows that despite there being lots of oil left in reserves, it is increasingly harder to extract that oil, and in the future the amount of oil available will be less than it is today. That last is because it's expected there are no large oil fields left to discover, and that no large oil fields have been discovered for over 40 years.
Now that I've gone over the incentive to moving to radically different transportation technologies, let's discuss some of them.
Gasoholic Hybrid Todays hybrid cars could be best called "gasoholic" as they do nothing to reduce our dependency on fossil oil. They run on gasoline, and the driver of todays hybrids are still 100% addicted to it. They are in my mind a bunch of hype especially when you consider there are modern cars with higher gas miles per gallon efficiency than the hybrid vehicles.
However the presence of gasoholic hybrids is what enabled ...
Plug-in Hybrid By being able to plug-in the user is enabled to begin to be weaned off gasoline. They are a step forward in reducing dependence on fossil oil, because recall that there is looming peak oil situation which will make it hard to find gasoline. There are several plug-in hybrid vehicles due to come on the market "soon" and lets pray that this does happen. The plug-in hybrid vehicles would not have occurred if it were not for dedicated individuals who developed plug-in hybrid conversions of the gasoholic hybrids, got lots of attention with their plug-in conversions, and caused enough ruckus and interest that the car companies decided to make their own.
The difference between gasoholic and plug-in hybrids is the plug-in variety allows the user to plug the car in to a wall socket to charge the battery pack. The pack is also large enough to drive the car for a significant distance. Since most people drive less than 40 miles per day it's very possible that by plugging in they could drive soley on electric power and not touch the gasoline at all, except on long trips.
There are two variations of hybrid vehicle technology. In the parallel hybrid the gasoline motor and electric motor are both directly connected to the wheels and directly drive the car. In the series hybrid the gasoline motor is used soley to drive a generator that in turn recharges the battery pack. Some of the car makers have taken to using the term 'extended range EV' when referring to their series plug-in hybrid designs. I think these car makers are thinking to burnish their image after being accused of murdering the electric car, and they have to have some way to be selling something they can call an 'electric vehicle'.
Battery Electric A battery electric vehicle has only a battery pack and is recharged typically by plugging into a wall socket. Electric vehicles offer 100% freedom from oil and there are no emissions, from the vehicle. Of course the emissions are moved over to the power plant which created the electricity, however the thing about electrons is they can come from a wide variety of sources. Even though the majority of electricity in the U.S. is generated from Coal, it's very feasible to generate electrons from other sources, and in any cases studies show that even if the electrons are generated from Coal the resulting emissions are less from an EV than from an equivalent gas car. Why? Electric motors are far more efficient than gas motors, there is little transportation cost to move electrons from place to place, and finally the power plants can burn their fuel more efficiently than a gas car burns gasoline.
Ethanol, Biodiesel, other biofuels Biofuels offer an interesting way to sidestep the looming peak oil issue, because the fuel doesn't come from fossil sources. Biological material grows all over the planet and there are well known methods for making alcohol or extracting oil from biological materials. Diesel engines can burn pretty much any oil, it is trivial to convert a gas car to burn ethanol, and Ethanol can be made from a zillion different plant species. Research is going on to bioengineer crops or algae etc to make biofuel production even more efficient, etc.
There's concern now that biofuel production diverts crops and have caused high food prices and food riots around the world. The truth about this is a bit murky. However there is a concern about the total output of biofuels which can be grown agriculturally especially as most land in the world is desert. In some rain forests they have been chopping down the rain forest to plant palm plantations, so they can harvest palm oil, and make biodiesel. Uh, was this the desired result?
Bioengineered biofuels may offer a different way to skin this cat. For example studies have been made of funneling smokestack output into algae vats, the algae absorbs the carbon emissions sequestering the carbon into its body, and the algae can later be harvested to make biofuel which is in turn burned in the power plant.
Fuel Cell Fuel cells have been 10-15 years away for the last 30 years. Sigh. They offer such great hope, you feed them hydrogen and oxygen and get water vapor and electricity. By the way if you're paying attention you might realize that a fuel cell car is an example of a series hybrid vehicle in that the fuel cell is used to recharge a battery pack, and the battery pack is used to drive the electric motor.
I think fuel cell cars are a bit of a boondoggle in it is a wasteful extra step to generate hydrogen. Hydrogen is in a zillion different chemical compounds around the world and is very abundant, but it is extremely rare as an element. Except in stars and interstellar gas. Maybe when we're living in tin cans in orbit we can have hydrogen collectors to gather interstellar gas to drive a fuel cell. But here on planet earth it takes a lot of power to extract hydrogen from any of the compounds it is in. It takes more power to extract the hydrogen than the power which comes out of the fuel cell, meaning fuel cells are a net loss situation. Because it takes electricity to extract hydrogen, why not just use the electricity to run a battery electric vehicle and dispense with the extra complication of the fuel cell?
I believe the best use for fuel cells is in power storage. There are a many alternative electricity technologies that are intermittent.. such as solar energy or wind energy. The wind doesn't always blow when you most need the electricity. If there were an excess of electricity one day the electricity could be used to extract hydrogen from something like water, the hydrogen stored in a tank, and then later run through a fuel cell to generate electricity.
Liquified Hydrogen Some car makers have build internal combustion engines that run on liquified hydrogen. I guess they listened to that 'hydrogen economy' phrase a little too literally. The phrase was meant to refer to fuel cells but gosh you sure can burn hydrogen in a specially constructed ICE engine. But as I just said, why bother, it's a net loss situation.
Compressed Air A small number of companies are developing vehicles that use engines that run on compressed air. The vehicle has a compressed air tank, and to drive you release the air, it flows through pistons, drives the engine, and the car moves. It's a way of storing energy in compressed air and extracting that energy by decompressing the air. Very ingenious.
Compressed air doesn't require any magical breakthroughs in battery technology, doesn't require extracting hydrogen, etc. It just requires using a well known technology to compress air. One qualm is the danger of highly compressed air tanks especially in an accident. The same concern exists for fuel cell and liquified hydrogen vehicles, as both use tanks with compressed gas. The higher the compression the more the energy that's stored in the tank, but also the higher the danger in case the tank breaks.
Water Some cockamamie videos have circulated the Internet claiming to show water being used as a fuel. Sigh. Suckers are born every minute I guess.
Fuel efficient motorcycles Why does American imagination for transportation fixate on boxes that ride on four wheels? There are a number of technologies outside the box (so to speak) of four-wheeled cars, and motorcycles are one of them. There are many motorcycles which get very high gas mileage. My Honda Rebel gets 75 miles per gallon and the Vespa's often get 100 miles per gallon or more. Vespa is due to begin selling a hybrid electric motorcycle that will get 150 miles per gallon efficiency.
There are a few considerations about motorcycles, and these considerations feed into the normalthink mantra which stops a lot of Americans from adopting motorcycle use. A motorcycle rider is unprotected against accident, true, but then that just behooves the motorcyclist to be extra careful and as the motorcycle safety training classes say, to look ahead, scan the traffic around them, evaluate the potential dangers, and plan ahead. Another issue is weather (rain, snow, etc) and it is both a safety and comfort concern. Perhaps it is best to not ride a motorcycle in the snow, but in general comfort is easily taken care of by wearing the correct motorcycle garb.
In many countries around the world two-wheelers (motorcycles, bicycles, scooters, etc) are in the vast majority of vehicles. Clearly it's possible to do this, to have roads that are full of two wheelers rather than roads clogged with four wheelers.
Two-wheeled vehicles can carry more people per square mile of road.
Small four-wheelers or three-wheelers Europe has the Quadricycle vehicle classification, which are small four wheelers that are highly efficient. There are also a range of three wheeled vehicles coming on the market in the U.S. and generally they are high efficiency and sometimes have a cabin to protect the rider from the elements. The Xebra, Aptera and Triac are all three wheeled electric vehicles which have enclosed cabins.
In the U.S. a three wheeled vehicle is considered a motorcycle and as a motorcycle doesn't go through the rigorous safety inspections that four wheelers undergo. This makes it easier for vehicle companies to get into the market due to not having the onerous crash testing expense. There's a consideration that perhaps the vehicle is less safe as a result of not having had testing.
Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEV) are low speed electrically driven four-wheeled vehicles. They often look like regular cars (such as the ZENN) but are limited to low speeds. Like the three wheelers this means less safety testing requirements and it is easier for the vehicle marker to come to market.
Electric Motorcycles or Scooters There's a wide range of electric motorcycles and scooters available. They look like their gas burning cousins but there's no tailpipe, no gasoline, etc, just a battery pack and an electric motor. All the things said about gas motorcycles apply to electric.
Electric Bicycles If you get out of the mindset that bicycles are only for recreation .. and start embracing bicycles as a utilitarian vehicle, that can carry cargo, can be used for commutes, etc, it makes sense to add a motor to a bicycle. This has been done for over a hundred years and a MOPED is literally a motorized bicycle. Electric bicycles abound, you can buy kits to convert a bicycle to electric, or you can buy pre-electrified bicycles. Electrifying a bicycle makes it far more practical to ride one, because it extends the useful range of the bicycle, it helps you arrive less sweaty at your destination, etc. Electric bicycles offer commutes at a fraction of the energy cost of any other type of vehicle.
http://visforvoltage.org - is a very good place to learn about electric motorcycles, scooters and bicycles
Mass Transit Why travel in a personal vehicle at all? Why not take a bus or train? In the U.S. we allowed our cities to be built for the convenience of cars, and this resulted in urban sprawl that makes it hard for mass transit systems to have enough population density to generate enough ridership such that the transit system has enough riders to be worthwhile. But in places where there is enough population density, mass transit systems make a lot of sense and are widely used. Manhattanites for example regularly do not own cars because they can get around using the subway or bus system. The same is true in European cities where the people were enlightened enough to not rip out their mass transit systems in the first place.
Robotized Cars Some have suggested that cars with robotic intelligence could automate driving tasks such that individual people would not be driving the cars, and it would be safe to pack cars at a greater density on the road than if humans were doing the driving. This would resolve the issue of wasteful land use. It's also easy to envision the roboticized cars as a service where people rent cars as needed rather than owning cars. This is because a roboticized car could be dispatched as needed perhaps via a cell phone transaction, the robotocized car could drive itself to wherever it's needed, drive the passenger to their destination, then whiz off to the next passenger. Robotocized cars could be electric and automatically seek out a charging station when they need recharging.
Telecommuting and Telepresence Why drive at all? With improvements in communications technology we can only expect online communication quality to increase as time goes on. If telecommunication improves a few more stages it may be possible to have what is effectively a face-face meeting with a hologrammatic image (a la Star Wars) and not even have to drive to your office. Of course a lot depends on the sort of work you do or whatever reasons you have for traveling.
Motorcycles are green machines: Motorcycles are fuel-efficient, pollute less, create less wear on our infrastructure, they alleviate traffic jams, and require less space for parking. This litany of win-win-win makes it astonishing why there aren't more motorcycles on the road.
Governments could establish congestion charges -- to which motorcycles are exempt. Two-wheelers of all kind alleviate congestion. Shopping centers and other places could be required to have motorcycle parking areas in parking lots. Motorcycles use less parking space in the first place.
And, by the way, everything just said about motorcycles applies doubly so to bicycles.
Further it's not people buying a motorcycle for 'recreation' but for commutes.
Scooter sales have been the briskest, with the shop selling about 40 to 50 during that period. Before gas prices started creeping up, it sold only about 10 per year, he said....In the past, customers were sometimes reluctant to buy scooters because of the geek factor, Barger said. But as soon as gas prices spiked, vanity hasn’t been as big a concern, he said....His most popular scooter model sells for $2,399, Barger said. It gets 100 mpg and can go 55 mph. Many customers have told him they can justify the upfront cost because of the fuel savings they expect to get from zipping around town on the scooter rather than a in gas-guzzling vehicle.
Are you among those cringing at the high cost of gasoline? There are many motorcycles which have high fuel efficiency.
“We've been sold out of small and medium-sized motorcycles” for weeks, said Don Ehlerding, president and general manager of MotorSports Inc.... “Sales are way up in the highest fuel-efficiency models,” ... People who've never ridden motorcycles before are investigating them as an alternative to cars. Ehlerding said interest is particularly strong from wives of motorcyclists and “40-somethings” who may have ridden in their teens or 20s and are now considering a return to motorcycles. Sure, it's fun, but the prospect of saving hundreds of dollars in gas every year can make the prices of small motorcycles, even new ones, palatable.
I have a Honda Rebel 250, as do one of the people quoted in the article. This motorcycle gets around 75 miles/gallon .. but the article quotes a dealer characterizing this bike also impose limitations. Its light weight - barely more than 300 pounds - makes it harder to control in a strong wind, he said. Even as it attains 70 miles/hr speed this light weight makes it unsuitable for highway riding. A heavier bike might give a more comforable ride.
The Cape Cod Chronicle had an inside track to getting a Vectrix Motorcycle to ride and review. One of their employees was married to the senior product manager for Vectrix. Anyway, they got an opportunity to ride one around for quite awhile.
"A person riding a Vectrix scooter is a novelty. Motorcycle enthusiasts—and there are more out there than you might imagine—are the most curious...." I've experienced this with my own electric motorcycle (not a Vectrix). Regularly people pull up next to me in traffic, do a double take of my motorcycle, roll down the window, and start asking questions like... "How fast can it go? How far can it go on a charge? How long does it take to charge the batteries? How much does it cost? ..." Yup, I get those questions too.
The article goes into the cost savings: Here on Cape Cod, residential electric rates are closer to 12.5 cents, so the real cost per mile is a fraction of a cent higher than their advertised cost of a penny per mile. By comparison, a fuel-efficient gas-powered scooter might get 47 mpg, yielding a cost per mile of around 9.3 cents—a number that will go up with gas prices. In case you’re curious, the cost per mile for a fuel-efficient 29 mpg compact car is about 15 cents. Those numbers are based on gasoline sold at $4.39 a gallon, and don’t take into account the maintenance costs of any of the vehicles.
The author of the article was also a newbie to motorcycling and lists several new experiences and things you have to be aware of: Weather forecasts, Insects, Solar glare, Potholes, Water sprayed on the pavement, Loose dogs, Coffee (no cup holders)
They seem to like it but this is really just an introductory article.
"Since gas went over $3.50 ... a lot of people are looking for 50 cc scooters,...Pretty much everyone these days wants to use them for daily driving." Motorcycle and scooter dealers - and riders - across the Rio Grande Valley say more and more shoppers are looking for fuel-efficient bikes to get them to work.
I know from my experience this is true. one day while at the gas station filling my Honda Rebel 250, this guy with a big truck drives up. He looked at me and asked how little it took me to fill up the tank on my motorcycle. Well, 8 dollars, and he goes on to complain that it takes $150 to fill his truck etc... I didn't mention to him my other motorcycle is electric and ends up costing even less to ride for my daily commute...
So, yeah, get scooters or motorcycles to save cost. Please, do.
The article suggests a fuel efficient motorcycle can pay for itself pretty quickly. Here's the way it works:-
Take a "car" which gets 15 miles/gallon versus a Ninja 250cc which gets 67.5 miles/gallon. You can go 4 1/2 times further per gallon of gas with the motorcycle than the car, or cover the same distance with 22.222% of the cost. Per mile you ride such a motorcycle versus the "steel cage" (car) you're saving 77% of the fuel cost, and for some commutes that fuel cost savings could add up to the $3700 purchase price of the motorcycle.
e.g. 10,000 miles takes 666.666 gallons in a 15 mile/gallon vehicle (no kidding) and at $4 per gallon costs $2666.666 per year for fuel.
10,000 miles takes 148.148148 gallons in a 67.5 mile/gallon vehicle and at $4 per gallon costs $592.295295 per year for fuel.
If you ride 10,000 miles per year you'd save $2074.06 per year in fuel costs riding the motorcycle over driving the car.
There is a national organization, Ride To Work, which is promoting the use of motorcycles for commutes because of the fuel/cost savings. While driving the highways it's apparent that most cars are driven by solo drivers, and it makes a lot of sense to encourage solo-driver-vehicles a.k.a. Motorcycles as an acknowledgment of this factoid of modern life.
"If I drive between 30 and 40, I'll get 120 mpg. If I drive between 40 and 50, I'll get 80-90 mpg." This guy is owning a three wheeled scooter that has a semi-enclosed cabin. The scooter is made by a Chinese company, Xingyue. The video shows the scooter tilting during turns and it looks really cool. It uses a 150cc gas motor.
The Moonbeam is an interesting concept of a vehicle. It's a home-built design where the plans are available on the above web site under a Creative Commons license allowing you to reuse those plans any way you wish. The vehicle is made from scooters, specifically 1980's era Honda Elite's, which the guy chopped up and reconfigured to have three wheels and a canopy. As a three-wheeler it registers as a motorcycle but in most U.S. states does not need further licensing beyond a typical drivers license. He estimates a $2000 for parts and a half year of assembly (assuming weekends).
However, looking at this just makes me think of the Scoot Coupe. That vehicle is a commercially built three wheeler built around a scooter drive frame. The Scoot Coupe does not have a canopy, so the driver will have to wear a motorcycle helmet, but otherwise it is very similar in concept. The big advantage is you can buy one of these with money rather than having to buy it with your sweat and weekends.
Either way the concept is fabulous. If driven with a gasoline engine either should get over 100 miles/gallon and be able to ride on city streets up to expressways and be able to handle the vast majority of around town travel. If driven electrically the limitation will be in the battery choice, the near-highway speed should be very achievable the question would be the range you can accomplish.
Bajaj Scooters are made in India, and are driven with a 4-cycle 150cc engine. The importer claims a maximum speed of 50 miles/hr so this scooter would not be such a good fit for American highways. But that speed allows one to drive on expressways pretty readily, and technically one is allowed on the highways with a 50 miles/hr vehicle.
The importer cannot give a precise miles/gallon figure. Largely it varies widely based on driving habits. However they claim efficiencies starting at 70 miles/gallon upwards to 120 miles/gallon or thereabouts.
The also import three-wheelers to the U.S. Three-wheelers are ubiquitous in India. Most often they operate as taxi's, but they come as vans and trucks as well. I have never seen one driving an American road, but they can be imported and driven here.
High mileage Suzuki is an inside look at what it takes to make a motorcycle run at over 200 miles/gallon efficiency in real world driving. The article covers the work of Matt Guzzetta who wanted to build the most fuel efficient motorcycle in the world.
Matt Guzzetta used a Suzuki motorcycle with a 125cc engine, that was then modified heavily for fuel efficiency. The whole motorcycle was encased in a fairing. With all that he achieved around 250 miles/gallon efficiency, and at that only won third place in the contest. First place was won by a motorcycle that achieved over 450 miles/gallon. The driving course was along Highway 1 on the California Coast.
The Ecorider is the first of its kind; a Diesel, high performance, low ground pressure all terrain vehicle/motorcycle. Its unique features and environmentally friendly attributes make it the ideal vehicle for numerous applications. Over-engineered, with high quality components this is a truly remarkable workhorse.
A couple months ago I bought a Honda Rebel 250cc motorcycle. I'm in the middle of building an electric motorcycle, and am needing some kind of motorcycle with which to learn the art of riding motorcycles. In California we're required to have a special drivers license, which puts me back into the role of having a learners permit and occasionally going to the DMV for a driving test. But that's a story for a different time.
I've discovered something with this motorcycle which is surprising me. You can have amazingly high miles/gallon efficiency!
I learned before that the U.S. EPA doesn't measure miles/gallon on motorcycles, but the hints I found implied that small motorcycles (like the Rebel) would get high miles/gallon efficiency. It also makes logical sense, that a small vehicle would require less energy to move it, and that a small engine on a small vehicle should get high efficiency.
In the first couple tanks I mentally calculated the miles/gallon and was astonished to see 90 miles/gallon efficiency. But I knew the numbers were small, and inaccuracies would loom large.
High miles/gallon efficiency is important because -- I'm going to drive anyway, and to drive while using less gasoline makes for great benefits such as less pollution in the environment.
Here are the numbers for the first three tanks of gas run through the motorcycle:
Odometer
Gallons bought
Elapsed miles
Elapsed gas bought
Miles/gallon
3199.1
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
3325.3
1.71
126.2
1.71
73.80
3440.3
1.53
241.2
3.24
74.44
3562.2
1.70
363.1
4.94
73.50
My calculation method is to record the gallons bought, and the odometer reading at the time it was bought. This gives me an elapsed total miles ridden and gallons bought since the beginning of these measurements, at 3199.1 miles. The elapsed miles / elapsed gallons gives elapsed miles/gallon efficiency.
Assuming the odometer is accurate.
As you can see, the efficiency is staying just above 70 miles/gallon. Take that hybrids!
Craig Vetter is an inventor specializing (it seems) in motorcycle related gizmos. One specialty is fairings that help improve gasoline mileage. He claims this design is proven to provide 470 miles/gallon efficiency. It involves using a small motorcycle (250cc engine) and a full fairing around the motorcycle. Clearly a fairing will reduce wind drag, and on a motorcycle there's a lot of things to contribute wind drag. Hmm... what a drag maaaan. Anyway, wind drag reduces fuel efficiency. So it stands to reason that reducing drag increases efficiency.
At the LA Auto Show Volkswagon has unveiled a concept "car" that's a three-wheel vehicle with high fuel efficiency and is billed as a cross between a sports car and motorcycle. At Green Car Congress and treehugger they're extolling it as a breakthrough, but I find it a big yawn. I suppose a claim of 46 miles/gallon has their attention, but I'm currently riding a Honda Rebel 250cc motorcycle which is getting well over 60 miles per gallon range.
It looks like a fun vehicle. The seating is for two people, in an open cockpit. It accelerates from 0-60 in under 6 seconds.
But if you think of it as a high efficiency vehicle, let me just remind you there are ones with higher efficiency.
The Scoot Coupe is an interesting vehicle that's a cross between a car and a scooter. A lot of the underlying parts seem to be from scooters, such as the handlebars and the 49cc gas motor. However it's a three-wheeler, giving it more stability than a scooter, and seats two people side by side. The best part is it gets over 60 miles/gallon. As a three-wheeler it will register as a motorcycle, but will not require a motorcycle license (at least this is the case in California).
b) Strengthens National Energy Security: Here the argument is to look at oil production from domestic sources versus imported oil sources. There is a growing gap in the percentage of imported oil. Given the deep addiction the U.S. has to oil, foreign powers have an inordinate power over the financial stability of the U.S. Through controlling the price for oil they can deeply influence the U.S. But the fueleconomy.gov site doesn't describe this issue very clearly, instead they pussyfoot around it. 
