New MPG Estimating Method Reduces MPG Estimates Compared to Old Method

EPA recently revised methods for estimating vehicle fuel economy to better represent current driving styles and conditions. The new methods—which apply to model year 2008 and later vehicles—include the city and highway tests used for previous models along with additional tests to represent:

• Faster Speeds and Acceleration
• Air Conditioner Use
• Colder Outside Temperatures

MPG estimates will also be adjusted downward to account for factors that are difficult to replicate in a laboratory, such as wind and road surface resistance.

EPA has a MPG comparison tool at its website that allows you to obtain mpg estimates for pre-2008 cars using the new method alongside the milage estimate using the old method.

According to CNN: "the Toyota Prius, the nation's best-selling hybrid model and the most fuel-efficient, is estimated to see its mileage rating drop 20 percent to 48 mpg in the city from the old estimate of 60 mpg. Its estimated highway mileage should fall almost 12 percent to 45 mpg from the current 51 mpg. The combined mileage estimate will fall about 16 percent to 46 mpg.

The Prius will remain the best-mileage car in the country even with the new formula. The big drop is not a surprise; Toyota has been saying publicly for years that it believed the EPA estimates were too high for hybrids."

Comments

[Kit P.]

I have been be skeptical about claims for HEV mileage. It would be nice to find an unbiased source of info to suggest giving rich people a tax breaks is good national policy.

[odograph]

I score a solid 50 mpg / 50 mpg in my usual city / highway driving. Yesterday, for instance, I drove 140 mostly freeway miles, and got home with a 51.6 mpg average.

I agree that tax breaks are a pretty useless approach ... if our true goal is to change overall fleet mileage. For the later, we'll either need a carrot or a stick that affects everyone.

[amazingdrx]

Dohhh. Why not insert MPG measurement devices in hybrid vehicles selected at random. that measure real world mileage? 1000 vehicles or so would get the survey the necessary statistical accuracy.

Why not do this? Because it would produce accurate results that make gas guzzlers look bad? That's my guess.

How about doing this sort of testing on plugin hybrids? Of course there would need to actually BE some plugin hybrids in order to do this. Why not make some plugin hybrids? Once again, it would make gas guzzlers look bad.

200 mpg plugin hybrid versus a 30 mpg SUV, with a 106 thousand dollar tax write off? Looks kind of, how you say, crazy?!

[Doug]

30 mpg?!? Try 20 tops on the highway, 15 or lower around town. Forget what the new mileage standards are gonna do to hybrids, what I wanna know is, how does the new formula rate the Suburban? Are we finally going to crack the single-digit barrier? ;-)

[Mike@HCVN]

The lower MPG are an effort to get closer to actual fuel efficiencies that people get in the Real World (TM). The funny thing about this is that the lower MPG ratings for all the cars increases the money you can theoretically save by buying a hybrid because more gallons end up being saved by buying a hybrid (even if the efficiency improvement is the same).

Mike

[Kit P.]

Mike, using your theory, will you calculate how much money I would have saved if I have bought a HEV instead of a Corolla. I drive about 10k miles a year. I started out saving $6000 on the price of car over one that has no real world data and I would expect to get no improvement in mileage. .

For Doug you can calculate how many sheets of plywood you can carry in a ¾ ton Suburban.

[Mark C R (Chemist) UK]

I've not looked into it - but does this account for fuel type / blend and other fuel based parameters?

e.g. the known issue Ethanol BTUs compared with Butanol or Biodiesel BTUs?

At all the varying blend levels?

Plus any other "additives" to the fuels?

Needs to be fair and independent - with no outside money/funding from any related organisation - such as the manufactuers themselves.

There's legal issues (especially in the US) regarding manufacturers allowing testing their cars to be tested.

It's in their interests to have good MPG

Anyway, enough from me.

Sounds like if correctly setup - this could serve as a driver for innovation in the auto and fuel industries. Thereby strengthening both by encouraging the manufacturers to push for better MPG.

Thereyby, potential for future renaissance in the US car market ... which given recent events is needed.... given the innovations the US car makers can make in MPG efficiency, are competetive with the Japanese/Korean manufacturers...???

Mark

[Bde2200]

It has been my long term experience, and the experience of many others, that the new numbers seriously understate the actual, real world mileage of small diesels.

[mapson4]

For real world mileage, I would look at:
http://greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/

Given I can usually beat Honda's EPA current estimates. I question the reduction for them. For a Jeep I owned, I only once got up to the EPA ratings. Humm

[George]

Kit P. wrote: I have been be skeptical about claims for HEV mileage. It would be nice to find an unbiased source of info to suggest giving rich people a tax breaks is good national policy.

Right Kit. A Prius actually gets only slightly better mileage than a Suburban in the real world. A Suburban gets a tax writeoff of about ten times the subsidy on the Prius (or is it closer to 20?) when used in a "business". Of course, given the phenomenal number of sheets of plywood that the Suburban holds, this is only fair.

[Kit P.]

Thanks for the link mapson4. There is enough data that I might consider a HEV if they matched my driving habits.

[Camero]

The only thing left to do now is change to kilometers and liters to bring it into the modern age using international standards...

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