Hot Child in the City

Erm, so. I landed in NYC last night at around 10pm, when it was still a stifling and humid 80 degrees. Even in the airport. You’d think people would have heard of AIR CONDITIONING. I mean this is AMERICA. Anyways. I made my way through the customs line at JFK (they were nice) and then waited for my bags (it didn’t take forever) and then hopped in a cab (seriously the best $50 you can spend). But it was, again, not air conditioned.

So as my cab driver is flying down the Van Wyck, windows rolled on all sides (pleasant because I could not hear his terrible music), I again pondered that age old question: windows vs. AC, which leads to crappier fuel economy?

I found several sites that suggest, yes, AC is actually more efficient at “highway” speeds than rolled windows because the open windows lead to serious aerodynamic drag. But then I found this site - it’s from PG&E, an electrical company, but the info seems solid. They present the data from a trial conducted by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) of fuel economy for an SUV and a sedan when driving at various speeds with a) windows down no AC, b) windows up no AC and windows up with AC.  As the graph shows, for a sedan, driving fast with the windows down used up at 20% more gas; AC was another 5 - 10% more on top of that.

For the SUV, however, which has all the aerodynamics of, well, a box, rolling down the windows did no affect the drag much (8% more fuel), because it was already about as shit in the aerodynamic department as possible. Turning on the AC at highway speeds sucked an amazing amount of fuel on top of that, though.

This leaves me with a few questions: why, exactly, was my cabbie driving a dumb sqaure box of a mini-SUV that didn’t even have any more seating or storage than your standard Crown Vic if he was worried enough about his gas mileage to sweat me to death in the back seat? And why do they count out your change so sllllllowl; does he think if he takes an extra three minutes curbside I am going to crumble and say “ just keep it?”.  I mean really. THIS IS AMERICA.