cars are designed to perform at their optimum when accelerated at one particular level. A slight deviation from that and the vehicles constantly lose energy. Whether on gear one, two, three or four, you unwittingly lose out on fuel efficiency if you don't stick to the optimum level fixed in the laboratory.

Two young researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands have managed to get around this hitherto unattended problem with a minor modification to the car's software. John Kessels and M Koot, doctoral students from the university, have created a software patch that reduces fuel consumption by 2.6 per cent. It switches the dynamo, which charges the car battery, on and off during times when it is