Quote:
Originally Posted by justjohn
Don't forget that slower accelerating methods will cover more ground so just going by how much fuel is consumed to get to 55 isn't a "fair" method.
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On one hand I agree with you, and on the other I don't. Basically, the idea is simply to determine how much fuel each technique uses to accelerate to cruising speed. Once there we make decent MPG, so any amount of time or distance after that is irrelevant.
However, the overall goal is to use less fuel over the entire distance of the trip. Hypothetically, if harder acceleration was more efficient than gradual acceleration, there should be less fuel used over the same amount of distance. The problem with this method is that although it would determine which technique is more efficient, it adds a certain amount of distance at cruise to the techniques that take less time to achieve cruising speed. This could be considered "unfair" to the harder acceleration techniques.
I think the best way to go about this is to drive a set distance for each test. It shouldn't be too much longer than the technique that yields the farthest distance covered before reaching cruise speed, so as not to skew the results by variations in cruise MPG. I think 1/2 mile should be sufficient. If the slowest technique yields the best results, longer testing distance may be required.