We Indians are obsessed about the mileage our motorcycles or cars are returning, and the "Kitna Deti Hai" has become a popular sentence specially amongst the biker community. Every now or then we used to see companies claiming certified mileage figures topping the chart with exorbitant and unrealistic sounding figures. I always wonder what is the use of these figures which can never be attained in real life scenario. Why automobile companies publicly display that their xyz product is returning best in class fuel efficiency of more than 100 kmpl which can not be achieved in actual riding conditions at all.The icing on the cake is certification issued by authorities verifying the figures claimed by the manufacturer. It is but natural, that a layman would trust the words of manufacturer by considering the claimed mileage figures as duly affirmed by the authorities. I am not saying that those figures are false or it is not mentioned that they are achieved in controlled atmosphere, but my point is, why not authorities find out the actual fuel efficiency of the bike in different real life conditions rather than doing it in an unrealistic and controlled atmosphere.
For those who are not aware of the procedure by which the companies test the mileage of there products includes, Dyno testing, where the bike is harnessed on a treadmill like machine and when the engine of the motorcycle starts and on dropping the gear the rear wheel rotates on a roller thereby the bike being stationary gets its rear wheel rotates as fast as it could. Generally, there is nobody riding the bike therefore no extra laden weight is involved at all, unlike the real situation where at least a rider is on the bike adding his/her weight to the overall weight of the bike.
This is not the end of the story, the bike harnessed on the machine is put into the top gear and allowed to run its rear wheel on the roller at a constant speed of 40-45 kmph. And this continues without changing any gear further and also without applying any brake whatsoever. Now if you consider this as a very controlled condition then add another important element into it- the stationary aerodynamics. Since the bike is not moving and it's actually the rear wheel only that moves, there is no repulsive force exerted on the bike and thereby adding more to its fuel efficiency.Now tell me, can anybody achieve this so called controlled condition in real life? or for that matter what is the need to do so? why would you want to do that? Someone of you might say that by doing things like that the manufactures can get the maximum limit of the engine pertaining to the fuel efficiency. But don't you think that it would be better if the manufacturers or the authorities try to find out the maximum fuel efficiency of the engine in more real life conditions to give us a fair idea about the efficiency we are going to get, rather than cut us loose to find out the tentative mileage from our motorbikes in real road conditions, which is for sure going to be lesser than by 30-35% from the fancy figures shown by the companies.
What do you think about it? Do share your opinion on this.
Picture Credit: pcsperformance.com
By: Farhan Kashif
