riverc0il
New member
http://blogs.wsj.com/drivers-seat/2...bacle-can-you-trust-the-fuel-economy-sticker/
The fact that Hyundai's 40 MPG marketing campaign, specifically with the Elantra, was a complete hoax is not news for anyone that has researched the car. But it is nice to see them caught red handed and forced to lower estimates and do a small payout to the consumers that they defrauded.
I was surprised to learn (while I saw car hunting) that EPA estimates are provided by the manufacturers and few are ever tested.
But the testing itself is suspect. I am getting 40 MPG average (not just highway) in my TDI that is rated at 39 highway and 33 average (pretty standard for a TDI, manuals do even better). How does one car get overrated by 2 MPG so that the company can hit a 40 MPG marketing claim while another get gets underated by 7 MPG in real world results? Even if you account for my conservative driving style, we are still talking pretty significant bad EPA results for the TDI.
Actual results will vary and all but something seems amiss here. And what is worse is that companies are hell bent on promoting their highway EPA estimate but it is average that is far more important. Bringing up your bottom end MPG for city/town has a far more important effect than bringing up highway 1 or 2 MPGs (unless you log all most all of your miles highway) due to the curve in which you burn more and pay more for lower MPGs (i.e. it is not linear).
Any ways, the whole process and rating system is suspect and I am super glad to see a company get caught and smacked down for letting their marketing department run their EPA testing which duped consumers.
Edit: And according to real world results (reported at http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=31216&id=31186&id=31183&id=31370), it looks like Hyandai also has over estimated their low end city rating as well, which appears really high compared to real world and the competition.
The fact that Hyundai's 40 MPG marketing campaign, specifically with the Elantra, was a complete hoax is not news for anyone that has researched the car. But it is nice to see them caught red handed and forced to lower estimates and do a small payout to the consumers that they defrauded.
I was surprised to learn (while I saw car hunting) that EPA estimates are provided by the manufacturers and few are ever tested.
But the testing itself is suspect. I am getting 40 MPG average (not just highway) in my TDI that is rated at 39 highway and 33 average (pretty standard for a TDI, manuals do even better). How does one car get overrated by 2 MPG so that the company can hit a 40 MPG marketing claim while another get gets underated by 7 MPG in real world results? Even if you account for my conservative driving style, we are still talking pretty significant bad EPA results for the TDI.
Actual results will vary and all but something seems amiss here. And what is worse is that companies are hell bent on promoting their highway EPA estimate but it is average that is far more important. Bringing up your bottom end MPG for city/town has a far more important effect than bringing up highway 1 or 2 MPGs (unless you log all most all of your miles highway) due to the curve in which you burn more and pay more for lower MPGs (i.e. it is not linear).
Any ways, the whole process and rating system is suspect and I am super glad to see a company get caught and smacked down for letting their marketing department run their EPA testing which duped consumers.
Edit: And according to real world results (reported at http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=31216&id=31186&id=31183&id=31370), it looks like Hyandai also has over estimated their low end city rating as well, which appears really high compared to real world and the competition.
