Drive Smarter Challenge

Drive Smarter Challenge is a website that provides a calculator showing how much you could save on gas using different tips and tactics. You have to tell them the make, model and year of your car as well as how many cylinders it has. They ask for your zip code too. One strange thing is that the website does not seem to know when a certain make or model has only one possible number of cylinders. Even if there is only one option, you have to choose it.

Then you can choose any combination of six maintenance and driving tips. The website then estimates how much you would spend in gas over a year. It assumes you drive the national average of 12,500 miles yearly and a gasoline price of $2.33 per gallon. The idea is you can see what money amount you could save by adopting better maintenance habits or more fuel economic driving patterns. The tips I got when I went through the site were:

1. Keep Tires Properly Inflated
2. Choose the right oil!
3. Reduce your Vehicle Miles Travelled
4. Curb aggressive driving!
5. Drive sensibly!
6. Ditch the "junk in the trunk"!

Then at the end it gives you a list of how much you saved on dollars, gallons of gas and CO₂ emissions. It invites you to challenge your friends and offers some coupons.


The picture above shows one of the tips with the buttons to accept or decline it. All of the tips are sensible, basic gas saving measures that will pay you back. The single tip with the biggest potential impact is of course Reduce Your Vehicle Miles Traveled. The website says it can save up to 5% of your gas, but that is way too low. You can potentially reduce your fuel expenditures by 100% if you go hardcore walking and bicycling.