What speed should I drive to get maximum fuel efficiency?
This is actually a pretty complicated question. What you are asking is what constant speed will give the best mileage. We won’t talk about stops and starts. We’ll assume you are going on a very long highway trip and want to know what speed will give you the best mileage. We’ll start by discussing how much power it takes to push the car down the road. The power to push a car down the road varies with the speed the car is traveling. The power required follows an equation of the following form: road load power = av + bv2 + cv3 The letter v represents the velocity of the car, and the letters a, b and c represent three different constants: • The a component comes mostly from the rolling resistance of the tires, and friction in the car’s components, like drag from the brake pads, or friction in the wheel bearings. • The b component also comes from friction in components, and from the rolling resistance in the tires. But it also comes f
