Great article about fuel efficiency everyone should see

[GXZ]

http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&A=112611


it talks about fuel efficiency and load, it will change the way you drive

[wagon-r]

Lot's of good information in the article.

But the conclusion is widely understood already, which is for the best fuel economy drive in the highest gear (with the lowest engine rpm) that you can stand. Decreasing engine rpm for the same vehicle load means that the load for each firing event is higher (not as many firing events). And the article explains why higher load per firing event improves efficiency.

[reklipz]

Lot's of good information in the article.

But the conclusion is widely understood already, which is for the best fuel economy drive in the highest gear (with the lowest engine rpm) that you can stand. Decreasing engine rpm for the same vehicle load means that the load for each firing event is higher (not as many firing events). And the article explains why higher load per firing event improves efficiency.

And from this it follows that getting to the highest gear that you can stand faster is always better than slower, so you should always do it as fast as you can. I think this kind of plays into that "pulse and glide" driving technique; basically open the throttle as far as you're comfortable with to get up to speed as fast as you can, and then coast back down and repeat. There's a reason you accelerate quickly in that technique, and I think this explains it.