But even if you don't currently own a fuel-efficient car, there are lots of ways you can improve fuel efficiency of your present vehicle until you're ready to purchase one of best gas mileage cars. Your personal driving habits have a big effect on your fuel use and costs. You can better manage your vehicle operating costs as well as minimize emissions it produces by driving less and more efficiently. Here are some tips to help.

First, you need to know what kind of mileage you are getting. Calculate this by filling up your tank and recording odometer reading-or you can reset your trip gauge to zero. Next time you get gas, fill tank again and divide miles you traveled between fill ups by quantity of gas you bought on this fill-up. This is your car's miles per gallon or mpg. If it's pretty dismal, here's how to turn your fuel guzzler into a fuel saver:

Drive slower: The aerodynamic drag on your car increases noticeably faster you drive. The drag force at 70 mph is about double that at 50 mph, so keeping speed down can increase your mileage considerably. Gas mileage decreases rapidly at speeds over 60 mph. Each 5 mph above 60 mph is like paying an additional $.10/gallon for gas. Observing speed limit is also safer for everyone.

Maintain a constant speed: Every time you speed up, you use energy, some of which is wasted when you slow car down again. By maintaining a constant speed, especially driving posted speed limit, you will improve your fuel efficiency. Just by increasing your highway cruising speed from 62 mph to 74 mph you increase fuel consumption by about 20%! Using cruise control on highway helps you maintain a constant speed and will usually save gas.

Drive gently: Aggressive driving-speeding, rapid acceleration and hard braking-wastes gas. These bad habits can lower your gas mileage by 33% at highway speeds and 5% in city. In addition, reasonable driving is safer for you and others, so you may be saving more than gas money. Consider using overdrive gears on highway, as this decreases engine speed, reducing fuel usage and engine wear.

Avoid Excess Idling: Idling gets 0 miles/gallon and wastes fuel and money, is hard on engine and adds to toxic emissions. Cars with larger engines typically waste more gas at idle than those with smaller engines. Turn off your engine if you think you will be stopped for more than 30 seconds. However, if you're driving a fuel-efficient car like a hybrid, your electric motor is on when you idle, so you're not wasting any gas at all!

Minimize air conditioning: Using your air conditioner in hot weather can increase your fuel consumption by more than 20% in city driving. Whenever possible, close all windows and use air vents to circulate air instead of air conditioning. You will improve your fuel efficiency in summer by minimizing use of air conditioning and using your car's flow-through ventilation, especially on highway. If you must use air conditioning, set controls to a level that lets system cycle, and turn it off once interior of car is cooled down enough. Also consider such options a sunroof and tinted glass to keep car cool.

Keep Your Car in Shape: Maintaining your vehicle in top working condition saves you fuel and money, and reduces long-term maintenance costs while minimizing harmful emissions.

The history of fuel cell can be traced back to 19th century. Since then development and usage of fuel cells in a variety of applications have come a long way. Fuel cells hold great promise for fueling alternative fuel vehicles. Here is some of history of development of fuel cells:

William Grove invented fuel cell in 1839. General Electric invented proton exchange membrane fuel cells in 1950s Francis Bacon demonstrated a 5kW alkaline fuel cell in 1959. NASA's use of fuel cells during Apollo space missions in 1960s was first commercial use of fuel cells. Alkaline fuel cells have flown over 100 missions and operated for more than 80,000 hours in spacecrafts operated by NASA. The US Navy has been using fuel cells in submarines since 1980s Fuel cell buses are running in several cities around world, largest being European Union backed CUTE project (Clean Urban Transport for Europe). All major automakers have prototypes of alternative fuel vehicles using fuel cells on road-some have already been leased to customers. Iceland has plans to convert its fishing fleet from diesel engines to hydrogen fuel cells as part of a national project to create a fossil fuel free economy Several car manufacturers are hoping to produce their first semi-commercial models of fuel cell cars by 2005, yet they will most probably not be mass produced until 2010. Numerous fuel cell products will be coming to market-portable direct methanol fuel cells will power mobile phones, laptops and cameras in near future A fuel cell is around 60% efficient at converting fuel to power, double efficiency of an internal combustion gas engine-which makes it perfect for alternative fuel vehicles. Fuel cells have several advantages over conventional power sources like internal combustion gas engines or batteries. Additionally, there are disadvantages facing manufacturers hoping to commercialize fuel cells. See how they stack up as next best fuel for alternative fuel vehicles.

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