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EPA Fuel Economy Myth: Too High, Too Low?
ThosLives asks: "I have seen here on Slashdot , and just about every other publication, numerous articles about fuel cells, hybrid vehicles, and the inaccuracies of EPA fuel economy stickers. For instance, today there is a review of the Toyota Prius that had the famous line 'Since no car really achieves the EPA estimated mileage...' I happen to drive a car with an EPA sticker of 21 city 25 highway (all figures in miles per gallon). I've driven the car for 47000 miles and the lowest I've ever seen is 23 and some change; the highest, 36.3 (I'm probably about 60% highway 40% stop-and-go and yes, the high was on a long highway trip). My all-time average is about 28.5. As most people get less than the EPA mileage, how does the Slashdot readership fare when it comes to EPA sticker vs actual experience, and on what type of vehicle?"
"Am I a rare breed that can drive my car (2.0L I4, 170 HP, 6-speed manual) aggressively (I've had coworkers and friends say 'woah!' more than I'd like to admit *grin*) and still stomp the EPA sticker? Did I get lucky with a phenomenal car? Am I enough of a counter-example to thwart the belief that the EPA figures are 'too liberal'? Are fuel economy issues just FUD from [insert lobby group of choice]? Or is the answer simply 'it depends on how you drive, what you had for breakfast, and the color of your neighbors' cat?'"
Your mileage may vary.
Car: Audi TT(6spd 225HP 1.8L turbocharged sports coupe). EPA: 20/28. Actual average for a tank has ranged from a low of 24mpg to a high of 33mpg. The 24mpg is a fairly even mix of city and highway driving. That value seems to correspond pretty closely to what one would expect from the EPA numbers. The 33mpg is all highway, of course, in sixth gear, with no turbo.
Of course, MPG greatly depends on how you drive, the state of the car, the fuel, the weather, traffic, and terrain.
The EPA numbers are a relative guide. They won't tell you exactly what you'll get for fuel consuption. However, you can easily use the EPA numbers to compare two cars' relative fuel efficiency. In fact, I submit that there is no better guide available for cars sold in the US.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/
My mileage dropped drastically after pieces of the neighbors' cat got caught in the air intake.
If it hadn't been a black cat I wouldn't have run over it at night.
So, yes, mileage depends on the cat's color.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
When the weather is warm, and that seems to be the biggest factor, I get the EPA-rated 70 mpg or more in my 2000 Honda Insight. 55 on cold winter days.
Driving at moderate speeds is also a big factor.
It's a travesty when a 3800-pound 2004 Pontiac GTO (classed as a compact car) that gets, in reality, about 20/26 is "rated" by the EPA at 15/18, and gets a $1000 "gas guzzler" tax...while the 8000-pound Ford Excursion in the next parking spot gets fuel mileage so bad that it isn't even rated...but is eligible for medium-duty-truck tax writeoffs, and no "guzzler" tax. The whole system should be dumped in favor of vehicle choice, not artificial limits put on cars by the government.
(I've had coworkers and friends say 'woah!' more than I'd like to admit *grin*)
Ye who speeds, cuts people off, and winds through traffic, is the first to reach the red light.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
My previous car was a '93 Ford Probe. It consistantly beat the EPA fuel mileage estimates by about 3-5 MPG My current car is an '02 Dodge Neon. It's consistantly worse than the EPA estimates by about 3-5 MPG.
Reading some of the other posts, it seems that older cars beat the EPA mileage and newer cars do not. Is it possible that the EPA changed their methods for estimating mileage?
Side note: I sure miss my '93 Probe. Sniff.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
It's really a quick and a smart thing to do and I encourage everybody to do it. Your fuel economy will be one of the first warning signs that your car is developing a problem. If that drops it's time to take the car to get looked at. Just a little time to save major money on repairs later. And if you go to sell your car you have a record of its health.
If not now, when?
The whole system should be dumped in favor of vehicle choice, not artificial limits put on cars by the government.
The truck exemptions (that allow for SUVs to have pretty much any fuel economy [or lack there of]) came from the late 1970s when most trucks were used by farmer and construction workers. The idea was to help those people, who generally are involved in small business and make peanuts anyway.
Times have changed, now everybody and his brother has an SUV or pickup truck (even if they don't admit it). The regulations haven't changed, not because of a scam, but because the federal beaurocracy is a mess. Sure, the oil-loving administration isn't going to hurry along any changes, but they aren't doing anything actively to prevent such changes either.
My '03 Hybrid Civic had (I think) 48/47 on the sticker. When I drive it, the "MPG" meter in the dashboard ends up around 42-46. At the pump, I actually get 39-44.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
You Americans could learn a lot from the rest of the world when it comes to getting more MPGs.
:-)
Just do what we do -- use a bigger gallon!
Low-tech solutions to hi-tech problems
'03 Vibe GT, I get from 26 - 28 mpg most of the time. long highway trips I might see 31mpg. Usually just a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Neighbors on both sides have Marmalade cats, as do we. Do you think its the cats?
I metamoderate, therefore I am
Toyota doesn't mess around. They've also sold the hybrid technology to ford. Let's not forget that toyota is also releasing a hybrid which does 0-60 in 4.03 seconds and tops out around 155mph. Don't walk away from this thinking Toyota is maniacally evil, if anything, they've got their shit together more than most automotive companies.
Sorry for being a toyhead, they please me immensely. Something tells me, if the author of the article was driving a volta, miles per gallon would be the least of his worries. I think toyota pretty much tops the list of fuel economy, on any playing field. Prius wins in my mind, not strictly because of fuel consumption, but by the name that's behind it.
Or you can dispense with the notebook altogether if, like me, you always fill your tank fully at the gas station.
When you fill up, the pump will tell you how many gallons you just pumped into your car. When I get back into my car, I reset the tripmeter (the "second" odometer which can be reset) after noting the number of miles I've driven since the last fuel stop. Then it's just a matter of spending the next minute or so trying to do the division as accurately as possible without getting into an accident.
This method is certainly no better than what the parent recommended, but it definitely requires less paperwork.
I also feel the need to say that there are a lot of very serious things that can go wrong with your car that don't affect the fuel economy --- just because you're beating the quoted fuel efficiency rating doesn't mean you don't have to look at other things!
In cold weather the Prius got between 35-40. Now that the weather is nice, I've been getting 48-52 for my commute. My wife who does more short trips and sits at lights with the AC on gets quite a bit less. The first 5 minutes in the Prius is very poor (about 25) as it is agressive in maintaining the engine coolant temprature for the low emissions. If it was designed for millage instead of emissions, it could do a lot better. Where the car does a fantastic job is in stop and crawl driving if you are not using the AC. It does that with the engine off 90% of the time. Conventional cars don't fare nearly as well as you are stopped too short to shut off the engine and sitting idling is zero MPG. An extra bonus is the car doesn't overheat in those conditions like my old car did. A warm day and stop and crawl traffic would usualy result in some loss of coolant.
The truth shall set you free!
I drive a 2000 Jetta TDI, and I am no light foot with it. The EPA rating for the car is 42/48 and my personal lifetime average for the car is currently at 47.1 MPG. On longer trips of predominately highway i have had mileage about around 52-53 miles per gallon, this is with cruising at 70 mph. Got to love driving a diesel car :)
They also depend on what gas you put in the car. Some cars do drive better on supreme.
When I used to live about 400km from my hometown, I spent the first while driving home on regular, it took about half a tank to get there (45L tank?)
However, when on a whim I tried "Supreme," it actually took me just a little over a quarter... so milage and bang-for-my-buck was actually better on the more expensive gas. Possibly this also has to do with the mountainous terrain and the fact that the gas gave me more power - not sure.
I do know that I regularly stick injector-cleaner in, so I shouldn't be getting plugged there. Therefore, I'm willing to state that better gas can give you better milage (and not all gas stations give the same quality gas either)
My 90 ZR-1 was stickered at 16/25. I got 18 city, and from 27 (80mph) to 33 (65mph). Not too shabby for 375 hp.
:)
Its replacement, a 2004 Z06, is stickered at 19/28 and I'm seeing 18.5/33-35 quite respectable and 405 hp to boot.
I love it when some econo-box criticizes my sports car as a gas guzzler and finds out I get better milage than they are
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
My diesel 2001 Jetta TDI gets about 54 MPG for highway driving (doing 75+ MPH), and about 48 MPG in the city. It has 90,000+ miles on it, and still drives like a champ. Plus, diesel prices fluctuate less than gas does.
r g/
Before people start to complain about environmental concerns, do the research first.
http://www.tdiclub.com/
http://www.biodiesel.o
I did a lot of research when I bought, due to my long commutes (150+ miles/day), and I save, on average, between $250 - $300 per month, which essentially paid for the monthly payments.
Great car. They also have Diesel Golf, Beetle, and Passat models, if the Jetta doesn't float your boat. Worried about not being able to find diesel? When my low fuel light comes on, I still have a 2 gallon reserve, or about 80 miles in the city, but in reality, it's not that difficult to find diesel.
They're definitely worth checking out. I plan on being able to keep the car for a number of years, as the engines last forever. Sorry to sound like a diesel advocate, but it's a great, comfortable car.
I'm riding a Honda Rebel around town now. The car I replaced with the bike was a 1992 Toyota Corolla that pegged in at about 30 MPG on the highway and 21 on the city streets. Since most of my driving was city streets, I'd have to fill up every week or less, depending on the travel schedule. The cost of gasoline now would make my average trip to the station about cost between $25 and $50 per week, again depending on how many times I needed more gas.
I've had the bike for about 2 months now, and I think I reached $50 total in gas this weekend. I haven't figured out the total mileage yet; when the tripmeter reaches 150 miles, I get paranoid that I'll have to cut in the reserve (2.1 gallons in the primary, .6 in the reserve) so I fill up. I always go in and put $5 on the counter, fill up the bike, and go back and get my change. I'm guessing that I'm hovering around 80 MPG.
And I'm getting a tan while I run errands.
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
Altough, around 2 months ago I performed a 'test'.
During the whole tank of gas, I accelerated as slow as I could never pressing the gas more than 1/4 of the way. I knew the lighs were going to turn red, so why accelerate? I eased on slowly and came up to the red using as little break as possible (a waste of energy)... maybe even rolling into the light as it would turn green and _then_ slowly accerlerating.
On the highway, I would stay in the right lane (insane for me). The speed limit is 70, but I would hold 63.
For the tank I averaged 35mpg.
Moral of the story. The car you choose does have a lot to do with your final MPG. But your driving habits also have a huge amount to do with your fuel usage.
I get twenty kilometers per litre, that's about fifty miles per gallon, on average, and that's with a very ordinary turbodiesel, nothing fancy or especially fuel economic (and a pretty quick driving style).
Man you gotta get laid, quit drinking, or do something to loosen up. I'm so sick of people blaming SUV's for all the world's problems.
Look around your home. Everything is made from plastics nowadays, and plastics come from petrochemicals. Carpet, shoes, jacket, tv, CD's, DVD's, chairs, aspirin bottles, backpack, remote controls, lampshade, joystick, keyboard, mouse, just to name a few. Are you old enough to remember when softdrinks all came in glass botttles, or do you think they always used plastic?
Our demand for all things derived from crude oil has increased, not just gasoline. Even natural gas was burned off as a waste product 30 years ago, now it's used as a fuel and new supplies are required to keep up the demand.
If everything you own is a hand-me-down or a reused item, and you don't drive, heat your house with wood and not oil or gas, and you don't purchase any new plasticy consumer goods, then your preaching has merit. If not, and I suspect this is the case, stop being so ignorant and don't give me your higher and mightier than though SUV's-are-evil speech. You're contributing to the demand for petroleum products just as much as anyone else is.
However, heavy lobbying (GM, C and Ford) managed to get defense contractors and other contractors, landscapers included in the scheme.
In the late eighties creative accountants started to include ordinary companies like small entrepenurs and got IRS approval for this. When the SUV market exploded in the nineties it became common for everyone with a small company (dentists, doctors etc) to get the tax break.
It's allways possibly to debate what came first; the tax break or the SUV (as an evolution from the truck and the station wagon)?
I think the SUV would have appeared sooner or later as an evoutionary thing within car industry but it would never had gotten so widespread without the tax break. And the truck segment would have been far far smaller than today.
The tax break is a protectionistic piece of shit mutated far from the original concept without any thought of the consequences, be it environmental, energy policy or foreign policy. If someone where to write a book on how special interest is allowed to corrupt US policy on several areas the SUV tax break case is a perfect example.
And BTW to the root poster that brought up this topic: The tax break is far greater than $4000. According to Taxpayers for common sence it's possible get tax break around $100000. They site an example where a business owner can buy a $110000 Hummer and deduct $106000.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
According to Time Magazine, gasoline accounts for 44% of US oil consumption. Diesel fuel, heating oil account for another 19%. Plastics procution is buried somewhere in the "other products" category, which accounts for only 15%. So while I can't say off hand exactly how much petroleum is used for plastics, I CAN say that at least about three times as much is used for gasoline.
Look, you're right that it's a multifaceted problem. Probably heating and electricity production (in which oil plants play a non-negligable roll) are even bigger concerns than plastic; however, gasoline is the largest single contributor.
More over, gasoline consumption is probably one of the easiest areas in which to make significant improvement. Unless you build your home or make major, costly, renovations, efficient heating and cooling can be fairly difficult. There are some simple things you can do, but you can only make so much headway. Electricity consumption is much the same situation, and effecting how it's produced is a more long term project.
On the other hand, it's quite easy for most people (who don't need to do major hauling for construction or farming) to buy a vehicle with nearly twice the fuel efficiency of many SUVs, so realistically this is the best way to attack the problem in the short term on an individual level. So, to me saying "oh what about plastics and heating, etc." still is a pretty flimsy excuse for making such a wasteful choice."You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Also, you might check out the Ford Escape (a hybrid SUV) that will be coming out next year. 40MPG ain't bad for an SUV! Check out this article, for example.