Earth Day: Pump 'Em Up and Help Save the Planet
By John O'Dell April 22, 2008
Edmunds.com employee finds Honda Civic tires are slightly over-inflated.
Happy Earth Day!
It's number 38. The first one was observed in 1971.
And we've come soooooo far since then, haven’t we?
Actually, while there are many reasons to worry about where we are heading environmentally, there has been progress.
The most important thing, perhaps, is that topics such as environmentalism, being green, saving the planet, conserving energy are part of mainstream conversation – and thinking – these days and no longer relegated to the fringes.
Greenies don't have to hide in corners anymore and even though a lot of what the corporate world is doing is more PR than practical, at least something is starting to happen.
Here at Edmunds.com, we decided to see if we could push the envelope a bit further and do something that, for all the PR it might generate, made both a meaningful and lasting contribution to the environment.
At the conclusion of our project, which involved checking tire pressures and bring them up to spec, we figure that the 212 employees in our company who participated collectively can save 5,695 gallons of gas per year, assuming 15,000 miles per year average travel in their vehicles and a continued willingness to keep their tires properly inflated.
That's an average savings of $119 a year in gasoline costs for each employee, based on the $4 per gallon we expect the fuel to soon hit.
More important, it is an annual reduction of 56 tons of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere and is thus linked directly to climate warming.
We call the event our tire pressure project and it is so easy and inexpensive, and can have such positive benefit, that we can see no reason it couldn't be adopted by every company – and every individual household – in the land.
The results, if people follow through once they find out how off the mark they are on tire inflation, include:
- improved fuel economy;
- reduced greenhouse gas emissions;
- reduced dependence on foreign oil;
- improved auto safety;
- improved auto performance; and
- improved tire wear.
That last item translates into additional financial savings for the vehicle owner, who doesn't have to replace tires as often, and environmental benefits for all of us from reduced demand for new tires and for the energy it takes to produce them and to dispose of the old, worn rubber.
To participate takes about 5 minutes once a week -- and the really time-pressed can stretch that to once a month -- plus an investment of $10 to $15 for a decent tire pressure gauge.
At Edmunds, we dipped into the corporate coffers and bought a digital gauge for each of the 400 people who work here and in offsite locations in Detroit, San Francisco and elsewhere.
We asked each person to use the gauge to check the pressure on his or her primary commuter vehicle and to fill out a form that showed the manufacturer's recommended pressure for the vehicle's tires; the actual pressure; the EPA fuel economy rating for that particular vehicle, and the mileage for an average daily commute.
The results were fed into a nifty spreadsheet that did a bunch of calculations, including adjusting EPA mileage figures for older cars and trucks to meet the revised standards for 2008.
My colleague, Phil Reed, examines the findings in detail in his Strategies for Smart Car Buyers blog.
What I want to pull out of all of the date is the potential in something this simple.
We're not talking about spending billions to develop powertrains that don't use fossil fuels – although that's a necessity we cannot put off -- nor about massive financial sacrifice or lifestyle changes or going to war or starving poorer nations or exposing ourselves to increased risk of nuclear contamination or any of the other things that naysayers bring up when talk turns to fuel conservation.
We're talking about keeping our tires properly inflated, something anyone who cares about life and limb and pocketbook – never mind the environment – should be doing anyhow.
Our little sample found that on average, the car-savvy folks at Edmunds were running on tires that were 7.1 percent underinflated – although individual figures ranged from overinflated down to 30 percent below manufacturers' recommended inflation specs.
The feds estimate that the average American drives on tires that are underinflated by 26 percent, or 3.66 times worse than the Edmunds average.
So take our modest in-house finding -- that the 212 project respondents would collectively save 5,695 gallons of gasoline during a year if they brought their tires up to spec -- and multiply it by 3.66 and you find that the average group of 212 motorists would save 20,844 gallons, reducing their collective automotive CO2 footprint by 204.3 tons a year.
In a company with 1,000 employees who drive to work, CO2 reduction could total 1,000 tons.
Nationally, the with 247.5 million passenger vehicles on the road, we could cut annual carbon dioxide emissions by up to 3.3 million tons merely by taking a few minutes a week to check tire inflation levels, fill 'em up and keep them rolling at the proper pressure.
Just a little something to think about on Earth Day, and beyond.
John O'Dell, Senior Editor
LEAVE A COMMENT