Category Archives: New Cars

How do you handle the point of no return?

It was a mild spin followed by an off. No contact — not even a position battle. I’d merely overcooked a corner, tried to get my Miata turned before I ran out of track, and failed. I went straight off (albeit backwards) and found myself looking back at Summit Point’s turn five, watching the other drivers in my session zing in from house left at a yellow-flag pace. Upon receiving the go-ahead from the corner worker, I goosed the little roadster’s throttle just enough to coax it out of the soft grass, completed my lap, and reported back to my instructor. When I proudly informed him that my incident had gone as well as could be expected, he nodded with what I thought was approval before not-so-gently reminding me that no matter how gracefully handled, screwing up is still screwing up. Not his exact words, but apparently we’re still maintaining some level of decorum around here.  

What did I learn from that? Well, for starters, given how trashed Summit Point’s track surface once was, trail braking into turn five required more finesse. But more to the point, I learned a lot about how I behave once things go completely wrong. It was neither my first off-pavement excursion nor my last, but the first I’d experienced at high speed on a track. In many ways, it was even less noteworthy than some of my previous antics.

2001: Riding in the back seat of my buddy’s Isuzu Trooper. He hesitated when a trash can rolled into the road but kept his eyes on it too long. I saw the stopping distance to a conversion van ahead disappearing but didn’t open my mouth fast enough to warn him. He looked up but too late. We ate the back of the van at 30 miles per hour. Clean hit. Bruised ribs. Scratch one Trooper.

2003: Driving my parents’ 2001 TJ Wrangler in the mountains. I pulled out of a friend’s driveway and proceeded to make it all of half a mile before understeering through an accumulation of wet mush left over from the autumn leaves. I put the Wrangler into a rock wall about 6 feet off the side of the road. Only cost me a fender and some dignity.

2008: Riding shotgun with the same wiseass instructor, this time at Virginia International Raceway. His PTD Neon race car shat out a wheel bearing and spit us onto the grass. His distress over putting me in harm’s way was obvious, but I wasn’t upset. I knew what I had signed up for. That impressed him and he said as much. And he was the one I called when, in 2016, I blew a cold Pirelli coming out of Big Bend at Shenandoah and put my driver’s side rear fender into a concrete wall

But let’s stick with 2008 for a moment, because that was when I started writing about cars. I wouldn’t get my first professional gig until 2014, but broadly speaking, I’ve been doing this for the better part of 16 years. For the first 15 of those, I kept my nose completely clean. Sure, doors get dinged and tires get worn, and I’ve handed off loaners with muddy floor mats more times than I can count, but not once have I returned a press vehicle meaningfully worse for wear.

Believe it or not, that is remarkable. If you’re deep into this business, the odds are not on your side. Even the best professionals run into things; it’s the nature of pushing the envelope. Those who don’t make their own mistakes — or are simply fortunate enough that their errors result in no meaningful consequences — remain at the mercy of their surroundings, their peers and in some cases, their competitors. There are no guarantees in this world, but chances are, at some point, you’re going to experience what I did on that hot, sticky afternoon at the track: the distinct feeling of passing the point of no return.

And so, when I found myself dangling from my seat belt several feet above my co-driver in a 2024 GMC Sierra HD AT4X last year, the first thing that popped into my head was neither a stream of epithets nor the cold embrace of panic. Instead, it was, “I should really shut that motor off.”

Let’s back up.

GMC had invited me/Autoblog to Montana to drive not one, but three new trucks: the 2024 Canyon AT4X, the AEV variant of the same and of course, the Sierra HD AT4X. My review of the Canyon AT4X and its AEV counterpart made it to “print,” but for reasons that are hopefully becoming clear, my Sierra write-up did not.

Off-road trucks mean off-road stuff. Each of our stints so far had put the caravan of GMC-driving journalists off pavement to some degree or another. This was to be our last leg of the day. My drive partner and I had swapped the smaller Canyon for the Sierra and set off on a trail conveniently (deliberately) carved into the hills on the same property where we’d conclude our program later that evening.

Our attention began falling into the gravity well of quitting time; we’d been at it for nearly 10 hours at that point, maintaining a brisk cadence with multiple trucks to evaluate. The light was getting long, low and blinding. Before dusk in Montana, you must first contend with dust. My hand was casually resting on the A pillar handle, as much to block the glare as anything else.

From the driver’s perspective, the berm was likely invisible behind the pale cloud of dust kicked up by the caravan in front of us. We were the final truck in the queue. With the sun setting to our rear and dazzling off the fine haze in front of us, there was no telling one phase of dirt from another. The first sign of trouble came not from my eyes, but my ears. 

Technical driving has more in common with Can-Can than commuting. Whether you’re carving apexes or climbing a rock face, getting it right comes down to managing the weight of your automobile. Your sense of balance — as it relates to your fundamental spatial awareness — is secondary only to your vision when you’re fully committed.

And the driver was, in fact, committed. Unfortunately, too far to the right, inside of our line and setting us up to cut the corner. No big deal, right? It’s an off-road truck. But the trail falls away as it rounds this bend, and by not mere inches, but feet. We couldn’t see the extent of his mistake in the blinding glare. As we crested it, the driver’s side wheel reached for purchase. And reached. And reached.

Years of going beyond the point of no return has attuned my inner ear to three settings: “everything’s cool,” “maybe grab a handle” and “oh, this is happening.” Suddenly, my biological accelerometer told me that we were about to blast straight from “cool” to “this is happening” without time for a pit stop in “handle.” From there on out, my memory is quite vivid.

Everything became automatic. My right hand tightened its hold on the A pillar handle while my left thigh practically lunged for the center console. Brace in the cage, something way back there told me. I flinched to the left automatically. Why? The airbag, it said again. Before that thought had faded, sure enough, I heard the “pop.”

But that wasn’t my airbag, it was the driver’s. It went off just as the truck teetered past its equilibrium point on the driver’s side. At that point, three things occurred to me in quick succession: First, we’re on a narrow, single-lane trail on the side of a hill. Second, that hill gives way to a 30- or 40-foot drop somewhere off to the driver’s side. And third, this is a big, heavy truck …

But before I could finish those calculations, my inner alarm bell stopped ringing. Half a second later, the truck settled. I looked to my left — down, if you’re a stickler for absolutes — and saw the driver, surprised but unharmed. I peeked over my left shoulder and found our rear-bench occupant — a GM engineer along to answer questions — likewise disheveled but uninjured. Amidst a quick round of “You OK?” and some dazed affirmatives, I instinctively reached down and hit the ignition switch to kill the big Duramax.

It took me two tries to reassure the OnStar operator that we had the situation under control. And by that point, it was even true. GMC’s support staff surrounded us within seconds of the rollover. Just as I hung up with OnStar, the door behind me opened. In hopped our support EMT (seriously, I’ve never seen somebody more excited for the opportunity to do their job), who asked everybody to honestly evaluate their physical condition before we pivoted to an extraction plan.

Enthusiastic, certainly, but the consummate professional. At that point, she told us we could go out through the doors, windows or the windshield. Dealer’s choice, so to speak. Mind you, apart from the singular open rear door, those things were still very much closed, blocked and/or intact. Somebody clearly brought her toys.

We all opted to take the already-open rear door. This put me last in line for extraction, since I’d have to fall into the driver’s seat (more accurately, the dirt where the window used to be) in order to re-orient myself so that I could wiggle into the rear compartment. I waited patiently in my DOT-approved hammock while the rear passenger and driver made their way out. With them clear, I freed myself of the belt and used the steering wheel and driver’s seat to get myself upright, stepping then onto the sturdy leg of the still-beaming EMT. In her version of this, I was probably on fire or something. If I had been, I’m confident she could have handled it.

Once clear, I got my first good look at just how hinky things had gotten. The Sierra rested peacefully on its side in soft sand a few feet from the edge of the trail. We were so far off our ideal line that our mistake ended up being less costly than it could have. Another foot or two to the left, or a little more steering lock to the right, and our inertia could have taken us clear off the side of the hill.

While GM’s on-site crew went to work righting the truck and dragging it off behind a curtain, I conducted my own internal debriefing. From the point of no return until the dust both physically and metaphorically settled, the entire situation had been outside of my control. Nevertheless, I had emerged from the chaos already working the problem. 

The wellness checks? The conversation with OnStar? Shutting off the engine? Automatic, every bit of it. Why? Call it what you will — Experience. Practice. Old-fashioned repetition. Sure, we had support close at hand. I could have sat there in stunned silence awaiting extraction and nobody would have begrudged me the time and space necessary to process things. Auto journos aren’t expected to think for themselves under the best of circumstances, let alone in any sort of crisis.

And something as simple as thinking to kill the ignition can be the difference between a small screw up and a really, really big one. While the Duramax continued to idle dutifully despite its orientation, those diesels do not like being on their sides. Engine oil is a lot like diesel fuel, and while the oiling system utilizes hydraulic pressure to keep lubricant flowing, it relies in part on gravity to keep everything where it’s supposed to be. On its side, the engine can ingest oil into the cylinders, which can lead to diesel runaway — a potentially catastrophic feedback loop.

In exchange for the opportunity to tag along with the recovery crew, I agreed to keep some particulars of the accident follow-up to myself. I can, however, say this: After being righted, the Duramax’s dipstick was bone dry, meaning at minimum, it had ingested more than a quart of 15W-40. Despite its surprisingly minor exterior blemishes (see that last pic above), that Sierra did not leave the premises under its own power. It may never have been fired up again, in fact. Many evaluation trucks are technically pre-production and thus destined for the crusher anyway; this one simply had a shorter journey than most, though I wouldn’t be shocked if curious engineers stripped it for both parts and data after the incident. 

But far more importantly, thanks to quick thinking by all parties, that was the extent of the harm done. Most of what we learn from failure, we internalize with the goal of preventing the next one. That’s prudent and even noble. But sometimes, the recovery itself can be the lesson.

Whatever you do, if you’ve been doing it long enough, you develop a sense for when things have gone completely and irrevocably wrong. Maybe you lost control. Maybe you never had it to begin with. But whether you find yourself 2 feet too deep into a braking zone or simply on the receiving end of a calendar invitation marked “Business Update,” remember: life keeps happening past the point of no return.

Texas sues GM, saying it tricked customers into sharing driving data sold to insurers

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Texas sues GM, saying it tricked customers into sharing driving data sold to insurers originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 14 Aug 2024 08:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2025 GMC Terrain is redesigned with bolder style and big tech

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2025 GMC Terrain is redesigned with bolder style and big tech originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 12 Aug 2024 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Boston’s awful traffic might soon get better thanks to Google’s AI

I live in Maine, which means that I often have to brave Boston traffic to do “big city stuff.” The Massachusetts metropolis’ age and dense population make it one of the most miserable places to drive in the country, worse than Los Angeles in many areas. The city is attempting to address the problem through a new partnership with Google’s Project Green Light, which leans on artificial intelligence to alter traffic light patterns in hopes of reducing congestion.

Boston’s chief of streets, Jascha Franklin-Hodge, told WCVB that the system “provides our traffic engineers with important data to tweak a signal by seconds, which can help reduce congestion along a corridor.” The city also said the tech should smooth stop-and-go traffic and cut emissions.

The partnership has so far been successful in limited early testing. Officials said, “At the intersections of Huntington Avenue and Opera Place, and at Armory Street and Green Street, stop-and-go traffic has been reduced by over 50%. Cities around the world that use Project Green Light have experienced a 10% average reduction in emissions.”

Boston consistently ranks among the worst cities in the U.S. for traffic. Earlier this year, CNBC noted that drivers lost an average of 42 hours sitting in traffic in 2023, so any improvement in commute times is a benefit everyone can get behind.

Google product manager Matheus Vervloet said, “Through Project Green Light, we are using AI to improve the lives of people in cities around the globe by reducing traffic and emissions. The success of Green Light is only possible thanks to the partnership we have with cities like Boston. We’re encouraged by the initial results we’ve seen in Boston and look forward to working closely with the city to scale this technology to more intersections.”

Project Green Light is still a new effort, with Seattle the only other U.S. city in its testing program. Google said that the project is live in over 70 intersections globally, impacting 30 million car rides every month. The company plans to expand to “hundreds of cities and tens of thousands of intersections in the next few years.”

These cars have the longest driving range after a low fuel warning

There are usually two types of people in a relationship: Those who fill their gas tanks as soon as it crosses the halfway mark and those who tempt fate by driving as far as possible with the low fuel light on. A recent MarketWatch Guides report caters to the latter crowd, as it examined how far different vehicles travel on an empty tank.

Before going too far, it’s worth noting that some of the vehicles on the list come from international markets. So, while those empty-tank mileage numbers might not translate directly to U.S. models, they are close enough to get an idea of how comparable vehicles would perform here. Having said that, it’s still not a great idea to push your gas tank as far as it can go.

The Toyota RAV4 Icon FWD offers the best mileage with an empty tank, traveling more than 73 miles after the fuel light comes on, according to the study. That’s more than enough to get to the next gas station, and may even tempt some owners into driving for days with the fuel light illuminated. The top 10 vehicles include:

MarketWatch didn’t drive every vehicle to come up with these figures. The organization divided each car’s fuel tank capacity by ten to come up with a 10 percent fuel capacity number and then used the fuel economy ratings to determine how far they could travel. A number of factors can impact that estimate, however, including driving style, the weather and any loads the vehicle is carrying.

We drive the Bronco Sport Sasquatch, Hummer EV SUV and more | Autoblog Podcast #846

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Plus, Formula 1 is back, and the VW ID.Buzz gets a price

Continue reading We drive the Bronco Sport Sasquatch, Hummer EV SUV and more | Autoblog Podcast #846

We drive the Bronco Sport Sasquatch, Hummer EV SUV and more | Autoblog Podcast #846 originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 30 Aug 2024 10:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Experts say Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ system is dangerous

DETROIT — Three times in the past four months, William Stein, a technology analyst at Truist Securities, has taken Elon Musk up on his invitation to try the latest versions of Tesla’s vaunted “Full Self-Driving” system.

A Tesla equipped with the technology, the company says, can travel from point to point with little human intervention. Yet each time Stein drove one of the cars, he said, the vehicle made unsafe or illegal maneuvers. His most recent test-drive earlier this month, Stein said, left his 16-year-old son, who accompanied him, “terrified.”

Stein’s experiences, along with a Seattle-area Tesla crash involving Full Self-Driving that killed a motorcyclist in April, have drawn the attention of federal regulators. They have already been investigating Tesla’s automated driving systems for more than two years because of dozens of crashes that raised safety concerns.

The problems have led people who monitor autonomous vehicles to become more skeptical that Tesla’s automated system will ever be able to operate safely on a widespread scale. Stein says he doubts Tesla is even close to deploying a fleet of autonomous robotaxis by next year as Musk has predicted it will.

The latest incidents come at a pivotal time for Tesla. Musk has told investors it’s possible that Full Self-Driving will be able to operate more safely than human drivers by the end of this year, if not next year.

And in less than two months, the company is scheduled to unveil a vehicle built expressly to be a robotaxi. For Tesla to put robotaxis on the road, Musk has said the company will show regulators that the system can drive more safely than humans. Under federal rules, the Teslas would have to meet national standards for vehicle safety.

Musk has released data showing miles driven per crash, but only for Tesla’s less-sophisticated Autopilot system. Safety experts say the data is invalid because it counts only serious crashes with air bag deployment and doesn’t show how often human drivers had to take over to avoid a collision.

Full Self-Driving is being used on public roads by roughly 500,000 Tesla owners — slightly more than one in five Teslas in use today. Most of them paid $8,000 or more for the optional system.

The company has cautioned that cars equipped with the system cannot actually drive themselves and that motorists must be ready at all times to intervene if necessary. Tesla also says it tracks each driver’s behavior and will suspend their ability to use Full Self-Driving if they don’t properly monitor the system. Recently, the company began calling the system “Full Self-Driving” (Supervised).

Musk, who has acknowledged that his past predictions for the use of autonomous driving proved too optimistic, in 2019 promised a fleet of autonomous vehicles by the end of 2020. Five years later, many who follow the technology say they doubt it can work across the U.S. as promised.

“It’s not even close, and it’s not going to be next year,” said Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety.

The car that Stein drove was a Tesla Model 3, which he picked up at a Tesla showroom in Westchester County, north of New York City. The car, Tesla’s lowest-price vehicle, was equipped with the latest Full Self-Driving software. Musk says the software now uses artificial intelligence to help control steering and pedals.

During his ride, Stein said, the Tesla felt smooth and more human-like than past versions did. But in a trip of less than 10 miles, he said the car made a left turn from a through lane while running a red light.

“That was stunning,” Stein said.

He said he didn’t take control of the car because there was little traffic and, at the time, the maneuver didn’t seem dangerous. Later, though, the car drove down the middle of a parkway, straddling two lanes that carry traffic in the same direction. This time, Stein said, he intervened.

The latest version of Full Self-Driving, Stein wrote to investors, does not “solve autonomy” as Musk has predicted. Nor does it “appear to approach robotaxi capabilities.” During two earlier test drives he took, in April and July, Stein said Tesla vehicles also surprised him with unsafe moves.

Tesla has not responded to messages seeking a comment.

Stein said that while he thinks Tesla will eventually make money off its driving technology, he doesn’t foresee a robotaxi with no driver and a passenger in the back seat in the near future. He predicted it will be significantly delayed or limited in where it can travel.

There’s often a significant gap, Stein pointed out, between what Musk says and what is likely to happen.

To be sure, many Tesla fans have posted videos on social media showing their cars driving themselves without humans taking control. Videos, of course, don’t show how the system performs over time. Others have posted videos showing dangerous behavior.

Alain Kornhauser, who heads autonomous vehicle studies at Princeton University, said he drove a Tesla borrowed from a friend for two weeks and found that it consistently spotted pedestrians and detected other drivers.

Yet while it performs well most of the time, Kornhauser said he had to take control when the Tesla has made moves that scared him. He warns that Full Self-Driving isn’t ready to be left without human supervision in all locations.

“This thing,” he said, “is not at a point where it can go anywhere.”

Kornhauser said he does think the system could work autonomously in smaller areas of a city where detailed maps help guide the vehicles. He wonders why Musk doesn’t start by offering rides on a smaller scale.

“People could really use the mobility that this could provide,” he said.

For years, experts have warned that Tesla’s system of cameras and computers isn’t always able to spot objects and determine what they are. Cameras can’t always see in bad weather and darkness. Most other autonomous robotaxi companies, such as Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo and General Motors‘ Cruise, combine cameras with radar and laser sensors.

“If you can’t see the world correctly, you can’t plan and move and actuate to the world correctly,” said Missy Cummings, a professor of engineering and computing at George Mason University. “Cars can’t do it with vision only,” she said.

Even those with laser and radar, Cummings said, can’t always drive reliably yet, raising safety questions about Waymo and Cruise. (Representatives for Waymo and Cruise declined to comment.)

Phil Koopman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who studies autonomous vehicle safety, said it will be many years before autonomous vehicles that operate solely on artificial intelligence will be able to handle all real-world situations.

“Machine learning has no common sense and learns narrowly from a huge number of examples,” Koopman said. “If the computer driver gets into a situation it has not been taught about, it is prone to crashing.”

Last April in Snohomish County, Washington, near Seattle, a Tesla using Full Self-Driving hit and killed a motorcyclist, authorities said. The Tesla driver, who has not yet been charged, told authorities that he was using Full Self-Driving while looking at his phone when the car rear-ended the motorcyclist. The motorcyclist was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities reported.

The agency said it’s evaluating information on the fatal crash from Tesla and law enforcement officials. It also says it’s aware of Stein’s experience with Full Self-Driving.

NHTSA also noted that it’s investigating whether a Tesla recall earlier this year, which was intended to bolster its automated vehicle driver monitoring system, actually succeeded. It also pushed Tesla to recall Full Self-Driving in 2023 because, in “certain rare circumstances,” the agency said, it can disobey some traffic laws, raising the risk of a crash. (The agency declined to say if it has finished evaluating whether the recall accomplished its mission.)

As Tesla electric vehicle sales have faltered for the past several months despite price cuts, Musk has told investors that they should view the company more as a robotics and artificial intelligence business than a car company. Yet Tesla has been working on Full Self-Driving since at least 2015.

“I recommend anyone who doesn’t believe that Tesla will solve vehicle autonomy should not hold Tesla stock,” he said during an earnings conference call last month.

Stein told investors, though, they should determine for themselves whether Full Self-Driving, Tesla’s artificial intelligence project “with the most history, that’s generating current revenue, and is being used in the real world already, actually works.”

2025 GMC Yukon refreshed with a fresh look, more tech and lots more luxury

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2025 GMC Yukon refreshed with a fresh look, more tech and lots more luxury originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 19 Aug 2024 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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These are the 10 longest-lasting vehicles on the road today

Those of us willing to bite the bullet and pay today’s new-car prices want to make sure that the vehicle we’re buying will stand the test of time. New models are generally more reliable than ever before, but a few names stand out as the most likely to last at least 250,000 miles. A new study from iSeeCars found that the 10 longest-lasting vehicles come mostly from one global automaker, and that company likely won’t surprise you.

The firm looked at data from more than 402 million vehicles, calculating the average odometer reading to help judge longevity. Toyota and Lexus dominated the list of projected longest-lasting vehicles, taking seven of the top 10 spots.

The 10 longest-lasting light-duty vehicles:

  1. Toyota Tundra: 36.6% chance of lasting 250,000+ miles
  2. Toyota Sequoia: 36.4%
  3. Toyota 4Runner: 26.8%
  4. Toyota Tacoma: 26.7%
  5. Toyota Highlander Hybrid: 25.9%
  6. Honda Ridgeline: 25.8%
  7. Chevrolet Suburban: 22%
  8. Toyota Avalon: 22%
  9. Lexus GX: 20.7%
  10. Chevrolet Silverado 1500: 18.8%

iSeeCars executive analyst Karl Brauer said, “Modern vehicles are getting more durable, with 30 models offering between a 12 and 26 percent chance of reaching a quarter-million miles. Many consumers still consider a car’s usable lifespan to end at 100,000 miles. But our latest longest-lasting study confirms that even 200,000 miles isn’t the end of the line for many cars. The top nine cars on the list have a better than 20 percent chance of hitting 250,000 miles.

Pickup trucks are featured heavily on the list of longest-lasting vehicles, but breaking the category out and adding heavy-duty trucks shows that the workhorse models might be some of the most durable vehicles around. The Ram 3500 had a 42.6 percent chance of reaching 250,000 miles, followed by the Tundra. The Chevrolet Silverado 2500HD was third at 29.6%, and the GMC Sierra 2500HD was just behind it at 29.1 percent.

These cars have the shortest driving range after a low fuel warning

If you’re one of those “I’ll get gas in the morning” types of people, pay close attention. MarketWatch Guides recently released a study outlining the vehicles that offer the shortest driving distances after the fuel light comes on, so don’t ignore the warnings if you own one of the vehicles on the list.

The Hyundai Kona 2.0 Essential was the vehicle offering the shortest low-fuel driving distance, at 36.97 miles. Other vehicles on the list include:

MarketWatch calculated those numbers by looking at each vehicle’s maximum fuel tank capacity. It divided the total by ten to determine a ten percent low-fuel marker and then used each model’s fuel economy ratings to calculate a driving range. It’s worth noting that a number of factors can impact gas mileage, including the weather, driving style and road conditions.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Toyota RAV4 offers more than 73 miles of driving range, followed closely by the Ford F-150. Some of the models MarketWatch listed aren’t sold here, such as the RAV4 Icon FWD, but the vehicles are close enough to U.S. configurations to give a decent approximation of low-fuel driving distances.

Most experts recommend against regular driving with a low fuel light on. Doing so can damage the fuel pump, filter and other engine components. If the tank is almost empty, the fuel pump can pick up debris and sediment off the bottom of the tank, which may clog the fuel filter or overheat the pump.