100 MPG Hummers, and other Maintenance Miracles

A huge percentage of repairs and maintenance done on our vehicles can greatly affect our gas mileage. Even keeping your tires properly inflated can give you a couple of extra ticks on the meter. Operating within the constraints that were handed to us by the automakers, we can optimize our gas mileage through regular maintenance of our vehicles' systems. But what happens if you remove these constraints?

Jonathan Goodwin of SAE Energy is committed to turning the vehicles that Americans love into environmentally responsible green cars and trucks. Who would think that you can build a Hummer that gets better than 60 miles per gallon? That's right, I said sixty. There are some green vehicles choices today, but they pale in comparison to Goodwin's creations. His milder mods (which he offers to the public) include bumping a Hummer's mileage from an average 8 mpg to a whopping 26 mpg. That's no small change, but this guy aims high. Goodwin is building a Hummer which will get between 60 and 100 mpg. How's he going to do it? With a jet engine. A fuel efficient jet turbine might seem like an oxymoron, but check out his plans and you'll be convinced.

For the rest of us, we'll have to be content getting an extra 1 mpg by changing our air filters.

_{photo of Johnathan Goodwin courtesy SAE Energy}