Abstract
This paper describes the application of a deterministic model for car fuel consumption. A comparison is made of where the fuel energy is dissipated over six driving cycles, identifying that the driving cycle reference can significantly influence the relative importance of design parameters in vehicle development. The comparison with a recent survey of customer experience demonstrates the locally developed test cycle to be a good predictor of in service fuel consumption of the vehicle fleet performance and in agreement with regression data for the fleet. Thus the model can be used as a basis for testing alternative strategies in vehicle development.