Impact of ambient temperature on light-duty gasoline vehicle fuel consumption under real-world driving conditions

Abstract

The widening gap between real-world vehicle energy consumption and modeled predictions can be attributed to discrepancies between actual ambient temperatures and assumptions made in laboratory tests. This study collected a detailed, extensive dataset comprising 25,640,666 records of real-world vehicle operating (speed, acceleration, etc.) and fuel consumption data alongside 124,938 hourly meteorological profiles (temperature, relative humidity, etc.). High-resolution fuel consumption rates (FCRs) based on ambient temperature were developed, and adjustment factors were introduced based on ambient temperature and vehicle specific power (VSP) binning. Fuel consumption factors (FCFs) were compared across different temperatures by incorporating VSP distributions and the adjusted FCRs, revealing larger FCFs at extreme temperatures compared to moderate ones. Fuel consumption inventories, both with and without temperature adjustments, were evaluated. The results indicated a 6% underestimation of annual fuel consumption in Beijing when disregarding temperature adjustments. The variation was observed across months (in July and August, underestimations can reach 11%) and across VSP bins (larger impact in low VSP bins). The relationship between FCR and ambient temperature is similar to a quadratic curve, with the lowest consumption occurring at 10 °C–20 °C. The FCF adjustment factor does not vary across speed intervals in cold weather and remains stable at approximately 1.15 at −10 °C, but it drops from 1.25 to 1 as speed increases from 5 to 100 km/h in hot weather. This study underscores the importance of considering ambient temperature in vehicle energy consumption modeling and the necessity of temperature-adjusted approaches for accurate fuel consumption estimations.