The effect of gear change on vehicle fuel economy

In regard of reducing fuel consumption of transport sector informing the drivers and reminding the importance of gear change factor to manufacture companies are two significant steps. This study will provide benefits to individual drivers, companies owning many vehicle fleets and vehicle manufacture companies. For this research, two drive cycles and one type of vehicle; petrol consuming, manual transmission ‘Ford focus 1.6 Mk2’ has been selected. One of the very important aspects of this study is the use of Warpstar simulation software program at the University of Warwick International Digital Laboratory. Using this simulation program provide the opportunity to combine and then contrast various drive cycles, gear changes for each gear at various engine-speeds in rad/sec. Even though this research employed one specific vehicle to carry out the simulations on and used NEDC and Hyzem Urban drive cycles, it is aimed to provide possible engine speed range for gear change in each gear to achieve a satisfactory fuel economy outcomes for making generalizations.