How often do you see people needlessly driving around with roof racks on their roof.
Fuel consumption impacts of auto roof racks.
Fuel consumption increased 2 6 2 and 1 1 compared with a clean roof.
The after market roof rack is one of the most common components attached to a vehicle for carrying over sized items such as bicycles and skis.
Sure it might earn you some cool points from some crowds but leaving a bike carrier luggage pod or other cargo toting device on top of your car can impact your fuel consumption and by a significant factor too.
We estimate the national fuel consumption impacts of roof racks using a bottom up approach.
The results show that nationwide roof racks are responsible for 0 8 of light duty vehicle fuel consumption in 2015 corresponding to 100 million gallons of gasoline per year.
Our model incorporates real world data and vehicle stock information to enable assessing fuel consumption impacts for several categories of vehicles rack configurations and usage conditions.
It is important to understand these racks fuel consumption impacts on both individual vehicles and the national fleet.
It is important to understand these racks fuel consumption impacts on both individual vehicles and the national fleet because they are widely used.