Hey look, one more course to learn tips for savvy driving! Toyota has announced plans for an EcoDriving course with Global Action Plan International that will promote smart driving courses for 12,000 Europeans in Spain, Belgium, Iceland, Norway, and the UK. The program, which costs €300,000, is expected to reach 10 additional countries in 2010. According to Toyota, the course can help drivers to reduce their fuel consumptions by 10 percent without purchasing "costly devices or modify their vehicles" just "by making simple changes to every-day driving behaviors, every driver, no matter what kind of vehicle they own." Toyota estimates that knowledge from this course could mean savings of 50 million tons (metric) of CO₂ per year, which translates into €20 billion in fuel savings. No, not per family.

The program started in Belgium last year with 5,000 drivers and its estimated impact was calculated in savings of around 415,000 liters of fuel, and over 1,000 tons of CO₂ in one year. This is what 71,000 trees (based on the CO2 intake of a Japanese cedar) capture in one year.



[Source: Toyota]

While scanning the news for important green automotive information, we ran across a note from Allstate Insurance which mentions that the average motorcycle rider reports fuel consumption of just over fifty-six miles per gallon. For comparisons sake, automobile drivers report an average of 22.4 miles per gallon. It's impossible to know for sure how many new riders have specifically chosen to ride a motorcycle or scooter for the sake of fuel savings. What's not debatable, though, is the rapid rise in motorcycle registrations in the last decade. As Allstate points out, ten years ago, there were roughly four million cycles registered in the United States. This year, there are over six million bikes registered. Granted, not every trip that's possible with a car is possible with a motorcycle, but when a bike is a viable option, we're pretty sure that the owners of said two-wheelers are enjoying the less frequent fill-ups that their rides require.

I am sure that you have seen various gadgets being sold that claim to increase your fuel mileage. I won't mention any names, but some of them make rather dubious-sounding claims which have never been verified, yet they remain on the market. Some of them have even been tested by the EPA, and have not fared well. This turns out to be nothing new, as you can see from this test that was run all the way back in 1968. Here are the gadgets in question:

• THE GT ENERGY CHAMBER
• THE GAS-O-MISER
• OCTA-GANE
• ECON-O-MISER
• FIRE INJECTORS
• SOLAR VOLT SUPERCHARGER
• GANE AIR FLOW NEEDLES
• GAS SAVER CHAMBER

So, did any of them work? I guess you'll need to read the article, now won't you? But, you can probably guess the answer anyway!

[Source: The Olds Zone via Jalopnik]