Figures Tell Tale

Newcastle Herald

Wednesday June 4, 2008

Brent Davison

WHEN it comes to the delicate art of forcing fuel through a car's engine there are three ways to go about it.

You can drive like there is no tomorrow with the throttle wide open at every opportunity; you can drive like you have eggs under the accelerator pedal, or you can try to find a balanced midpoint.

What does that mean in real terms? In last week's Audi economy run two of those techniques were observed diligently and the third the balanced midpoint became the subject of much discussion in the informal post-run debrief.

In the first instance a control car was driven normally over the 366-kilometre route from Adelaide to Kangaroo Island and achieved 4.3 litres/100km (65.7mpg). In other hands for the return trip, it managed 4.6 litres/100km (61.4mpg).

In the second instance the rest of the fleet was driven with ultra-care, the most frugal car rolling to the finish after consuming just 3.5 litres/100km (80.7mpg). The fleet average for the run came in at a miserly 3.86 litres/100km, or as near as dammit to 73.2mpg.

True, all of us except those in the control car drove conservatively, but in real-world figures the supposition was that any driver on a long trip taking choice number three and being a bit careful could manage 4.0 litres/100km (70.6mpg) in the new breed of econo-car.

Not bad when you note the national average fuel economy for passenger cars sits at 11.4 litres/100km (about 24.8mpg).

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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