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Hybrids Beware? EPA Revises Mileage Standards

Posted by timothy on from the lies-damn-lies-and-downhill-coasters dept.

Shivetya writes "The federal Environmental Protection Agency announced a new system for determining the fuel economy of many cars and trucks. Hardest hit will be hybrids as all-electric driving is not considered. At the same time, many medium-duty vehicles will get rated, but not have to be published until 2011 This move to more realistic ratings will severely reduce the high numbers some cars have posted."

1 of 550 comments (clear)

  1. Good! Now use some science by Chairboy · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    The EPA numbers haven't been representative/useful for ages. Every car owner so interested has had to determine their own average mileage, usually via their gas receipts or instant-economy displays on their dashboard.

    The City/Highway system doesn't allow for the type of accurate planning that is needed, I'd rather see a Typical rating that is based off of some algorithm that averages city/highway driving on level ground and leaves the rest to the consumer. When I plot cross country flights, I have a known fuel burn-rate I can depend on. With my car, I have to drive until the gauge gets low.

    For example, my 1999 Buick Regal has a Typical mileage of 22mpg. That's for my (now mostly) city driving with a touch of highway thrown in. If I spend a lot of time downtown, it might be 17mpg-ish. If I'm on a cross-country trip at a reasonable speed (eg, not 45mph) then I see 26-29mpg. These numbers are based off exact experience. While writing this, I googled to find my 'official mpg' and got this: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/15081.shtm l

    This site does exactly what I'm suggesting. The official city mileage is 18, the official highway is 27. That's great, but the ACTUAL mileage that I see is the same as what these folks figured off of average spread: 21mpg.

    I don't care what my theoretical mileage is, I care what the practical/typical mileage is. For my car, it's 21-22mpg. Dropping the City/Highway trick in favor of something like this gives a more USEFUL number, even if it's at the expense of losing bragging points from a theoretical highway-only number.

    And in the end, what's more important?