A lot of Americans are about to find out they’re not.
Harsh right? With the coming of fully electric vehicles, a lot of US drivers are about to learn they’re going to have to “think” about their driving styles in order to get the most out of the batteries. We read about so much “Range Anxiety” when in fact the biggest variable to range is actually the drivers themselves.
To be honest, having been both a professional racing driver and a race driving instructor, most Americans know little about the dynamics of driving. Today’s cars fix a lot of their sloppiness and mistakes for them. Good driving is assumed, not studied in this country. That “don’t give it a second thought” attitude is about to have a huge impact on the performance of their electric vehicle.
A simple test will prove to you if you’re a good driver, average, or an awful one. The art of driving smoothness has been a long standing delta of truly good drivers. I won’t go into the physics here (the value of corner weight to traction value of a tire and so on), but I will share a simple test you can try for yourself:
Take a tall, fairly small in diameter glass.
Draw two lines on it: one two inches from the top and another one inch from the top.
Now add water to it to the first line (two inches from the top) and wrap a dish towel around and it and place it in your vehicle’s cup holder.
Now, drive to work. Be ready: you’re really likely to get wet.
Smooth driving will keep that water in the glass and not on you. Wider radius turning, smoother steering inputs, slower softer brake pedal and throttle inputs, smoother, longer highway lane changes and limousine stops at lights and stop signs will pay you many rewards.
Like what rewards you ask? Well for one thing, your passenger will be a lot more relaxed. Your brakes and tires will last longer and your current gas mileage will go up significantly. Master these skills now, and your “range anxiety” when you finally get an electric vehicle will be a non-issue. So a little more help on driving smoothly: The average vehicle today weighs around 4000 pounds, and yet we see people drive hard on the throttle all the way to the next stop light and then jump on the brakes — smooth that is not. Trust me, at 4000 pounds, it will cost you if you back off the gas several hundred feet before the the stop light. That will save fuel, save brakes and save tires. If you leave the stop light with light but increasing pressure on the gas pedal, you’ll be surprised at how much smoother it makes you as a driver.
Lane changes: I see people yanking the vehicle into the lane they want to switch to — WHY? As a driver, they just upset the bale and traction of that vehicle beyond their wildest dreams and God forbid they have to make corrections to their path during this lane change. With that method, if there was a car in their blind spot, they give them no chance to either alert you or move over to avoid contact.
What the heck is a limousine stop? Limo drivers figured out long ago that the key to a good tip from their clients was to drive smoothly. Limo drivers pull up to a stop slowly, decreasing brake pedal pressure as they near the full stop. The vehicle stops smooth and balanced (i.e.: there’s no spilled water from the glass).
I've also uploaded a video describing the water glass smoothness test, which you can watch on YouTube below:
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