Driving Sustainability: Analyzing Eco-Driving Efficiency Across Urban and Interurban Roads with Electric and Combustion Vehicles

Miqdady, Tasneem; Benavente, Juan; Coloma, Juan Francisco; García, Marta · 2025 · Crossref

DOI: 10.3390/wevj16030143

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Summary

This study addresses the lack of empirical data regarding the effectiveness of eco-driving techniques in electric vehicles (EVs) and internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles across diverse driving environments. While eco-driving is recognized as a strategy to reduce energy consumption and emissions, existing research has largely focused on ICE vehicles in urban settings, leaving gaps in understanding how these techniques perform in interurban contexts, with automatic transmissions, and specifically in EVs. The authors aimed to quantify the relative energy savings achieved through eco-driving compared to normal driving behavior, evaluating the impact of vehicle type (EV, manual ICE, automatic ICE), transmission system, and road context (urban vs. interurban) across cities of different scales. To investigate these factors, the researchers conducted a large-scale driving experiment in Spain during November 2024, comprising over 500 test runs. The study compared two cities: Madrid, a large metropolis with high urban density, and Caceres, a smaller city with smoother traffic flow. Three vehicle categories were tested: EVs with direct transmissions, ICE vehicles with manual transmissions, and ICE vehicles with automatic transmissions. Drivers with no prior eco-driving knowledge were instructed to apply eco-driving techniques, such as maintaining constant speed and anticipating traffic, on routes categorized into local streets, arterial urban roads, and interurban roads. Data on energy consumption were collected and processed to calculate the proportional reduction in consumption achieved through eco-driving. The results revealed significant variations in eco-driving efficiency based on vehicle type and road context. In Madrid, eco-driving reduced energy consumption by 30.4% in EVs on urban roads, leveraging regenerative braking, compared to 10.75% in manual ICE vehicles. Automatic ICE vehicles also showed strong performance, achieving 29.55% savings on local streets. In interurban settings, manual ICE vehicles achieved the highest savings at 20.31%, whereas EVs showed more modest improvements of 11.79%, attributed to their already optimized efficiency at steady speeds. The smaller city of Caceres demonstrated higher overall savings due to less congested traffic conditions. Additionally, the study found that single-speed transmissions in EVs enhanced efficiency across various conditions, while modern automatic transmissions in ICEs performed comparably to manual ones in specific urban scenarios. These findings provide critical insights for optimizing eco-driving strategies and vehicle design, highlighting that the benefits of eco-driving are not uniform across vehicle types or environments. The study concludes that EVs benefit most from eco-driving in complex urban environments, while ICE vehicles, particularly manual transmissions, see greater relative gains in interurban settings. The authors recommend that future research explore AI-driven eco-driving applications and real-time optimization to further improve sustainable mobility. The results also support policy recommendations for implementing tailored eco-driving strategies in cities of varying sizes and traffic conditions, emphasizing the need to consider transmission types and road characteristics in sustainability initiatives.

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• eco driving