Estimates On Average Car & Truck MPG Much Worse Than EPA Says

[hatrack]

If you think the fuel economy of U.S. vehicles is dismal, well, you're right. Perhaps more right than you know.

Official U.S. EPA statistics ascribe a pathetic average of 20.8 miles per gallon to the 2003 car fleet, about 6 percent lower than 15 years ago. The fleet averaged 22.1 mpg in 1987, before Americans got hooked on gas-guzzling SUVs. But according to the enviro group Bluewater Network, the actual fuel economy of America's cars and light trucks is as much as 20 percent lower than the EPA claims. The Bush administration last week agreed to look into the issue, as a belated response to a petition filed in June 2002 by the group -- but cynics can be forgiven for questioning just how hard they'll look.

Here's the problem: The EPA's gas-mileage tests of new vehicle models -- conducted in labs rather than on roads -- are based on methods and criteria developed 20 years ago and long since obsolete, according to Bluewater Executive Director Russell Long. The result, he says, is that the EPA's estimates of fuel economy are significantly more optimistic than what most drivers actually experience in the real world.

"The traffic patterns today are totally different than they were two decades ago, and this has serious impacts on a car's fuel economy," Long says. For example, ubiquitous urban congestion has resulted in more idling and start-and-stop driving, and average highway driving speeds have increased -- all leading to higher fuel consumption. (Get the nitty-gritty on problems with the current testing model in the 2002 Bluewater report "Fuel Economy Falsehoods" .) Nonetheless, the EPA's misoverestimated fuel-economy numbers appear on labels affixed to every new car on the sales lot."

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http://www.gristmagazine.com/muck/muck040204.asp?source=galert