Patent ID: 7532974

Claim:
An ideal fuel consumption estimating unit for a vehicle, comprising: a timer for measuring a running time of the vehicle during which the vehicle is driven; a vehicle speed sensor for measuring the vehicle speed in a unit of time during which the vehicle is driven; an engine revolution number sensor for measuring the revolution of an engine of the vehicle in a unit of time; a control unit including: means for calculating parameters having a correlation with a traffic condition on a road, the parameters including an average vehicle speed based on the measured vehicle speed and the measured running time, a frequency of stops of the vehicle based on vehicle speed coming to zero during the running time of the vehicle, and an idling ratio denoting a ratio between an idle time during which the engine is driven at an idling revolution and the engine running time when the vehicle is driven by a vehicle driver considered to be an ideal vehicle driver under the traffic condition on the road; means for measuring a real fuel consumption of the vehicle; and means for creating an ideal fuel consumption estimation model for estimating an ideal fuel consumption of the vehicle based on the calculated parameters and the real fuel consumption measured by the measuring means; and an output unit for outputting the ideal fuel consumption estimated by the ideal fuel consumption estimation model and the real fuel consumption measured by the real fuel consumption measuring means with respect to a target driver being evaluated.