A holistic approach to vehicle simulation

Vehicle simulators traditionally model a vehicle's components separately. This paper describes a “holistic” simulator that constructs a map of fuel consumption vs speed, acceleration, and gear for the vehicle as a whole, based on statistical analysis of road test data. A single computer routine can simulate any number of existing vehicles, once each is outfitted with instruments and a data logger and is tested 1 to 2 days on the road and perhaps on a chassis dynamometer. Results of simulating a 1979 Ford Fairmont station wagon are presented.