Divvy My Ride Blog

Found this very interesting article in USA today.

Carpool is a necessity and a headache for parents today. As a founder of a carpool site, I can vouch for this first hand. We thought that carpooling would be important for people commuting for work or traveling between cities. But to our surprise, the biggest demand for carpool solutions is from parents trying to solve the challenge of hauling their kids to soccer games, swimming and other group activities.

-mayank

Read more at: The carpool: a staple of modern parenting

Everyone knows that gasoline is considered a commodity whose price is determined by the vagaries of free market (aka demand and supply). At least every one is told so.

And yet all of us have been feeling the pain of the rising gas prices over the last 3 months, as prices have gushed from ~$3.00/gal to $4.35/gal. I have even switched over to biking to work twice a week just to “stick it up to the man”. Yes, there is a instability premium due to the middle east revolution/unrest. The obvious question is how much is this “premium”? I would say that the unrest in Yemen and Syria while barbaric, should not affect the crude price. Lets look at the top 15 producers of Oil. (I am not looking at top exporters of crude oil to the US, because the prices are obviously a global number).  From the CIA website

Oil Producers, CIA facts 2011

None of these places have had their oil production disrupted by the recent unrest. Right?

So the almost $30/bal ($110 vs. $80) premium we are paying seems a bit unreasonable. Now look at what happened this Thursday. Oil prices plummeted by a whopping ~8% in one single day. Yes, this is a commodity we are talking about. Did the demand drop by a astounding 8%? or did they find a giant pool of oil? neither did all the problems in the Middle East get solved. Nothing.

Oil Prices, 5th May, 2011

My take is that there is a lot of money sloshing around and people are speculating with Oil futures and prices, unfortunately you and I have to bear the cost of all this. Still there is one way to stick it to the oil Co, carpool, bike, walk and let us all use less OIL…

We are a carpool website, but when government policies and state propositions have such a huge impact on our future, we have to pitch in with our two cents.

The most important (Anti-) Green Prop this elections is Prop 23.

Before you decide your vote, here are a few things to consider.

What is Prop 23?

• California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 requires the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Proposition 23 would suspend the law, known as A.B. 32, until the state unemployment rate fell to 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters

This has happened only three times in the past 40 years, so you already know that this Prop will kill AB.32.

Who is funding Prop 23? (Majority (90%) Funding)

• Marathon Petroleum of Findlay, Ohio
• Texas oil companies :Tesoro and Valero and
• Koch Industries (TX) A petrochemical company controlled by the billionaire Koch brothers

These are the same oil companies how want to keep us addicted to oil. Their TV ad claims that AB32 will cost jobs, I say that choosing not to act will costs us the Solar and Clean Tech revolution, and the environment too. Why support a technology that is guaranteed to die in 50 years and which is controlled predominantly by the Middle East Countries?

Governor Schwarzenegger had  this to say in a recent energy forum, “they (Texas Oil) are very deceptive when they say they want to go and create more jobs in California”. “Since

when has [an] oil company ever been interested in jobs? Let’s be honest. If they really are interested in jobs, they would want to protect A.B. 32, because actually it’s green technology that is creating the most jobs right now in California, 10 times more than any other sector.”

Who is Against Prop 23.

• Silicon Valley venture capitalists, New York hedge fund managers, national environmental groups and green technology executives.
• Companies like Google, Gap and their family members.
• More than $800,000 has come from activists who work on behalf of low-income communities afflicted by pollution.
• Blue Shield of California, the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Waste Management and other mainstream corporations
• And I hope You!

I don’t care if you are a republican or a democrat, facts are facts.

You can read more at

1)     “The Terminator vs. Big Oil” By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

2)     Green Politics in the NYtimes.com

In case the extra premium of paying for the Li-Ion Batteries was keeping you away from buying a Hybrid, your excuse no longer stands.

Honda just introduced a sub- 20K Insight

Los Angeles Times reports

“At under twenty grand, the Insight will be the least expensive new hybrid available in the country; even the more feature-laden EX version of the Insight, which includes alloy wheels and paddle shifters, will be under the Prius’ $22,000 starting sticker. By pricing it so low — almost $4,000 less than its own Civic hybrid — yet delivering a car that looks and behaves remarkably similar to the current Prius, Honda is making a risky bet that cost-conscious consumers will be lured to choose its hybrids over non-hybrid alternatives. Meanwhile, with a new far more fuel-efficient 2010 Prius set to hit showrooms in June, the Insight could lose out on buyers who care more about green (as in ecology) than green (as in dough).”

Read more at

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/uptospeed/2009/03/honda-hybrid-pr.html

Here are the work commute times around the Nation. Ever wonder what would you have done if you had this extra time sitting on the passenger side or a public transport? Credit : US Census Bureau and San Jose Mercury

Commute Time in the US 2008

You would assume that with the gas prices now well below the $2.00/gal in most of the places, americans would be driving around a lot more. Not true. USA today notes

“Drivers logged 10.7 billion fewer miles in September than they did the same month a year earlier — a 4.4% decline, according to data issued Wednesday by the Federal Highway Administration.” If you recall gas prices have been on a down ward run since July.

Jack Finn, senior vice president and national director of toll services for consulting firm HNTB, thinks that

“[People are] taking less trips, there’s less driving, more carpooling and part of that lifestyle change will continue.”

So there is still hope for people carpooling.

Read more Here.

I found this interesting list of most fuel efficient car on www.ecomodder.com

Top Vehicles MPG(US)

Gas prices dropped from $140 a barrel two months ago to $82 last Friday. Can some one tell me that the demand has suddenly dropped by a wopping 41%? There is certainly speculation in this market. But this should  not  discourage the carpooler. Carpooling is the long term solution.

Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best ones.

Read about the qdrum used to transport water in remote Africa on http://greenupgrader.com.

http://greenupgrader.com/3934/q-drum-human-water-transportation-made-easier/

Yes!! After months of back and forth with developers, the new carpool site is ready… Try the new site at  Divvymyride.com

DMR…

“Mr. Bush, Lead or leave”
“It’s as if our addict-in-chief is saying to us: “C’mon guys, you know you want a little more of the good stuff. One more hit, baby. Just one more toke on the ole oil pipe. I promise, next year, we’ll all go straight. I’ll even put a wind turbine on my presidential library. But for now, give me one more pop from that drill, please, baby. Just one more transfusion of that sweet offshore crude.”…
“This from a president who for six years resisted any pressure on Detroit to seriously improve mileage standards on its gas guzzlers; this from a president who’s done nothing to encourage conservation; this from a president who has so neutered the Environmental Protection Agency that the head of the E.P.A. today seems to be in a witness-protection program. I bet there aren’t 12 readers of this newspaper who could tell you his name or identify him in a police lineup”

Some things, like renal physiology, are difficult. Some things, like Arab-Israeli peace, are impossible. And some things are preternaturally simple. You want more fuel-efficient cars? Don’t regulate. Don’t mandate. Don’t scold. Don’t appeal to the better angels of our nature. Do one thing: Hike the cost of gas until you find the price point.

Unfortunately, instead of hiking the price ourselves by means of a gasoline tax that could be instantly refunded to the American people in the form of lower payroll taxes, we let the Saudis, Venezuelans, Russians and Iranians do the taxing for us — and pocket the money that the tax would have recycled back to the American worker.

This is insanity. For 25 years and with utter futility (starting with “The Oil-Bust Panic,” the New Republic, February 1983), I have been advocating the cure: a U.S. energy tax as a way to curtail consumption and keep the money at home. On this page in May 2004 (and again in November 2005), I called for “the government — through a tax — to establish a new floor for gasoline,” by fully taxing any drop in price below a certain benchmark. The point was to suppress demand and to keep the savings (from any subsequent world price drop) at home in the U.S. Treasury rather than going abroad. At the time, oil was $41 a barrel. It is now $123.

Read more in this Washington Post article by Charles Krauthammer
At $4, Everybody Gets Rational

From the Boston Globe a great article on Myths and Facts about gas saving

Read more: http://www.boston.com/business/personalfinance/gallery/fueleconomymyths/

Gas-saving tips – fact or fiction?

Gas prices got you down?

At roughly $4 a gallon, many people are desperately trying to squeeze more miles out of each drop. The best ways are usually the most obvious: reduce your load, resist the urge to drive aggressively, and cut the number of trips you make, for starters. However, there are some unusual tips that might surprise you.

Short quiz, from the Boston Globe : find out which tips are true energy savers and which are merely gas station myths.

fill up when it’s cool

The claim: During warm weather, it’s best to refuel in the early morning or late evening, when temperatures have dipped, because gas will be denser. The denser the gas, the better your fuel mileage.
False. Both Consumer Reports and Popular Mechanics have ruled this rumor false. Modern pumps are temperature-compensated to regulate fuel density, according to Popular Mechanics. Even if they weren’t, gas temperatures typically remain stable all day, Consumer Reports writes, rendering the advantage of going out of your way to pump at a certain time negligible.

Air conditioning vs. open windows

The scenario: It’s the dead of summer, and you’re driving on the highway. With gas prices north of $4, however, you choose not to run the air conditioning because of the strain it will place on your gas tank. Driving with the windows open will help you conserve gas.
False. In this scenario, this line of logic would be false. There would be no savings from turning off the air conditioning because opening the windows would create drag, reducing the car’s normal gas mileage. Consumer Reports tested the theory while driving a Toyota Camry at 65 miles per hour, and found that choosing air or windows didn’t make a justifiable difference. That’s not to say that air conditioning is always the best option. The Department of Energy’s website suggests that turning off the air conditioner may improve fuel economy when driving at speeds under 40 mph.

to idle, or not

The claim: If you need to run into your house to grab something, or if you’re sitting in traffic for even a minute, it’s best to turn off your car. It’s more fuel efficient to restart the car than to leave the engine idling.
True. This one is true. Some might believe that restarting the car’s engine wastes more fuel than letting it run, but modern fuel-injection technology allows already-warm engines to restart without burning gas, according to Popular Mechanics. Idling, however, can waste fuel.

Avoid filling up when you see a fuel truck

The claim: If you pull up to a gas station that is receiving a fuel delivery, don’t use the pumps. The delivery stirs up sediment in the station’s tank that could be pumped into your tank. Dirty fuel will hurt your gas mileage.
False. While a fuel delivery may stir up sediment that gathers in a station tank, both the gas station and the car have filters that will prevent sand or dirt from affecting your car’s performance.

It’s somewhat of a hold over fear dating back to when gas tanks were made of metal rather than fiberglass, said John Paul, AAA’s Car Doctor, in an interview. Stations regularly test their fuel supply for quality, he said.
“If you’re on ‘E,’ and the low fuel light’s on, and the only station around is the one with the tanker, go, and get the gas,” Paul said.

Best day of the week

The claim: Tuesday — or maybe you’ve heard Wednesday? — is the best day of the week to purchase gas because prices level midweek.
False. If this were true wouldn’t everyone be doing it? There is no best day of the week to make a pit stop at the pump, or predict when prices will dip.There are several websites, locally our own guide to gas prices in your area, and nationally, GasBuddy.com and AAA’s Fuel Price Finder — that allow you to canvass your town’s stations without driving around in search of the best deal.

Higher the grade of gas, better the fuel economy

The claim: Your car manual recommends regular gasoline, but buying premium gas will get you better gas mileage because of its higher quality.
False. While premium grade is a higher-quality gas, that doesn’t mean your car necessarily needs it, according to Consumer Reports. Most cars are designed to run on regular gas, and many cars that recommend premium can also use regular because modern sensor systems automatically adjust to prevent engine knocking, a pinging noise caused by premature fuel ignition. Make sure you read your vehicle’s manual before making any changes to the products you use.

Over-inflate your tires

The claim: Filling under-inflated tires to their recommended pressure is a proven way to improve fuel economy. Conventional wisdom would follow that filling the tires even further, to the maximum on the tires’ pressure range, will only improve your gas mileage.

False. Inflating your tires beyond the recommended level will reduce the portion of the tire in contact with the road and the resistance between the tires and the road, but over-inflating them can make for a rocky ride. Popular Mechanics has also road tested this theory and concluded that the gas mileage doesn’t improve.The difference occurs when under-inflated tires are pumped to proper levels. In fact, the Department of Energy estimates that this simple fill up can improve your gas mileage by 3.3 percent.

Pump slowly

The claim: You will get more gas for your money if you set the nozzle to the slowest setting while you pump. More gas, and less air and vapors, will pass through the hose and into your tank.

False. There’s no truth to this claim, according to John Paul, AAA’s Car Doctor. Gas station systems are designed so that little air or fumes will take the place of the gas for which you’re paying dearly. There is one perk to pumping slowly, according to Paul. “What that will do, the end result is you will get a fuller tank, but you’re still paying for it.”

tailgate trick?

The claim: Driving with the tailgate of your truck down will make the truck more aerodynamic, which will help fuel economy.

False. The logic behind the argument is sound, but this is one theory that’s been tested — and debunked — by multiple car experts, including the Discovery Channel sleuths on the show MythBusters. According to Episode 43 of the program, which first aired in 2005, driving with the tailgate down reduces the number of miles you’ll get for your money

Use your overdrive to improve your fuel economy.

The claim: You can optimize your fuel economy on the highway by putting your car into overdrive, typically the transmission’s highest gear. This will allow your engine to run at a lower level of revolutions per minute, and use less energy.

True. According to the Department of Energy, when overdrive gearing is used, “your car’s engine speed goes down. This saves gas and reduces engine wear.”

A dirty air filter will cost you

The claim: If your air filter is dirty, your engine will receive less air, but burn the same amount of fuel, throwing off the car’s air/fuel ratio and making the vehicle more inefficient.

False. While this was once true, modern engine technology now compensates for the problems a dirty air filter would create. Both Consumer Reports and Popular Mechanics agree that today’s engines will inject exactly as much fuel as the engine needs, and will adjust to changes in the amount of air being received. However, regular car tuneups can’t hurt.

Reuters had this article about officials at Kent State University in Ohio allowing 4 day work week to its best employees so that they could reduce their gas bills.

read more at

USA Today had a article by Judy Keen and Paul Overberg on 9th May about how the increasing gas prices are affecting the daily lives of people. You can read more in the article titled: “Gas costs squeeze daily life, survey reveals how high prices have pushed us into new routines.”

Some interesting poll results are inserted below.

The Attitude poll was very reveling as well.

Robin Chase is the founder of Zipcar. Her vision for the way we would commute and travel in the coming years is revolutionary, but very plausible. She is working on a carpool site http://www.goloco.org, with a theme very similar to what we are trying to achieve at DivvymyRide.com (i.e. increase carpooling) but her approach is slightly different. GoLoCo.com (or should I say Robin) believes that the social community structure is enough to motivate a regular commuter to change his habits and switch over to carpooling locally. The web is good enough to bring people together on a superficial level, (checking blogs, leaving feedback or testimonials etc etc), but it is very hard to convince a person to share a car ride with someone person they got introduced on the web.

Any way listen to this great talk by her.

mayank

“So what are intelligent responses to our predicament? First, we’ll have to dramatically reorganize the everyday activities of American life. We’ll have to grow our food closer to home, in a manner that will require more human attention. In fact, agriculture needs to return to the center of economic life. We’ll have to restore local economic networks — the very networks that the big-box stores systematically destroyed — made of fine-grained layers of wholesalers, middlemen and retailers.

We’ll also have to occupy the landscape differently, in traditional towns, villages and small cities. Our giant metroplexes are not going to make it, and the successful places will be ones that encourage local farming.

Fixing the U.S. passenger railroad system is probably the one project we could undertake right away that would have the greatest impact on the country’s oil consumption. The fact that we’re not talking about it — especially in the presidential campaign — shows how confused we are. The airline industry is disintegrating under the enormous pressure of fuel costs. Airlines cannot fire any more employees and have already offloaded their pension obligations and outsourced their repairs. At least five small airlines have filed for bankruptcy protection in the past two months. If we don’t get the passenger trains running again, Americans will be going nowhere five years from now.

We don’t have time to be crybabies about this. The talk on the presidential campaign trail about “hope” has its purpose. We cannot afford to remain befuddled and demoralized. But we must understand that hope is not something applied externally. Real hope resides within us. We generate it — by proving that we are competent, earnest individuals who can discern between wishing and doing, who don’t figure on getting something for nothing and who can be honest about the way the universe really works.

James Howard Kunstler is the author, most recently, of “World Made by Hand,” a novel about America’s post-oil future.”

Read More at the Washington Post

If oil hits $200 a barrel, which is the upper end of Goldman Sach’s prediction for prices over the next six months to two years, the gasoline picture changes quite dramatically. At $200 a barrel, crude alone would cost $4.76 a gallon. Add on the costs of refining and distributing as well as taxes, and pump prices could rise to a range of $6 to $7 a gallon.

U.S. drivers haven’t radically changed their behavior, and it is unclear at what price it becomes unprofitable for Americans to go about their usual day-to-day activities, said Eric DeGesero, executive vice president of the Fuel Merchants Association of New Jersey.

“Maybe at $6 or $7 a gallon, it becomes less attractive to go to work,” Mr. DeGesero said. “We haven’t hit that point yet, but we might soon.”

Read more at the WSJ  

An analyst at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Murti has become the talk of the oil market by issuing one sensational forecast after another. A few years ago, rivals scoffed when he predicted oil would breach $100 a barrel. Few are laughing now. Oil shattered yet another record on Tuesday, touching $129.60 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gas at $4 a gallon is arriving just in time for those long summer drives.

Read More at Nytimes.