Driving Speed: Does It Affect Fuel Consumption?

Which consumes more fuel? Driving fast or driving slow? Consumption of fuel is one of those aspects of driving that makes the money you spend on your car fluctuate. The more fuel efficient your car and you as a driver are the less you'll be spending on your vehicle weekly, monthly, and yearly.

However, don't you wonder sometimes whether driving slow or fast will make more of a difference in your daily fuel consumption? You need to pay attention to several issues to truly boost the fuel efficiency of your car.

Driving Fast versus Driving Slow

  • The Realities of Slow Speed: At the hub of most modern cars there's a bulge. It indicates the effect of fast, slow, and middle speed to the consumption of fuel. A normal engine turns about 1,000 to 3,000 RPM. Even at very slow speeds, the gear is still going to be at lower gear or you're spinning many RPM at slow speeds, so every fuel injection burns more fuel when driving slower. Driving faster is more efficient in light of engine RPM after every fuel injection but with the caveat that you'll be dealing with more air resistance.
  • Fuel Consumption at Fast Speed: You'd normally think that the faster you go the more fuel you spend. That's just common sense, right? On one hand, engine load actually decreases at higher speed due to you shifting to higher gears. This gives your vehicle to glide at 1,000 to 3,000 RPM. Less fuel is used with a lower load taken by a smaller amount of revolutions per minute. On the other hand, the air resistance is raised 4 times for every speed doubling. This results in high fuel consumption.
  • Drive Slow or Drive Fast? Driving faster results in more fuel guzzled because of the energy used to conquer the engine load that increases with speed due to proportionate air resistance. Where the threshold of driving fast varies from car to car. Most average cars have the threshold at 75 miles per hour. For stronger and harder cars such as sports cars, the threshold is raised and you can get a decent amount of mileage when going fast. Driving slow also has its challenges because of fuel consumption at lower gears.
  • Is The Sweet Spot Fuel Efficient for Every Vehicle? The sweet spot is the middle speed between 30 to 50 miles per hour. Meanwhile, you lose mileage around 60 to 65 miles per hour. By and large, it's what's used in order to get as little air resistance as possible, thus resulting in higher transmission and a good distance per revolution of your engine. However, it's not fuel efficient for every vehicle. Other factors should be taken into consideration, like the shape of the car that affects its drag coefficient, the size of the car, its weight, higher road load, and so forth.

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