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EU Car Makers Manipulating Fuel Efficiency Figures
pev writes with a report in The Guardian that "European car manufacturers are rigging fuel efficiency tests by stripping down car interiors, over inflating tyres, taping over panel gaps and generally cheating. This overestimates the figures by 25% to 50%. One would have thought that a simple clause stating that cars have to be tested in the conditions that they are sold in would have been obvious?"
I'm shocked - I had always taken it as read that the figures were very optimistic and now this is considered news.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Haven't we all been taught to take all of these "tests" with a grain of salt?
Fuel efficiency tests are for comparison purposes. If all makers cheat equally, comparisons are still meaningful. When legislators set an standard, they'll probably take that into account and make the standard a bit tighter.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
If all we have to do is over inflate your tires, tape over the panel gaps, and keep your car empty ( find somewhere else to park your junk ), to get 25% - 50 % better gas milage, why don't we all do it ?
This is no different from dot matrix printer specifications from long ago. Sure your printer would do 250cps as long as all the characters were the number 1.
This topic comes up every time we discuss fuel efficiency on here. Someone inevitably complains that the high-efficiency European cars are not available in the US, and then someone else points out that the Euro cars would not do very well on the EPA test. Hijinks ensue.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Over inflating tires maybe not, but taping over panel gaps for -10% in fuel would interest a lot of people.
The EPA standards that were implemented in 2008 supposedly imposed tougher standards on manufacturers, taking into account colder temperatures, faster driving, and AC use. I found in my own car I get much better mileage than what the window sticker advertised. A little surprised the US seems better regulated on this one small issue.
Another way to cheat is they use diesel, which is more energy dense.
For the sarcasm-impaired, I am very much in favor of diesel and have been complaining for at least a decade that we don't get a good selection of diesels in the U.S. All I want is a diesel sports sedan with manual transmission. My only choice right now is the Jetta. No thanks.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Maybe some of these 'tricks' can actually be used to improve fuel efficiency.
Can we make tires that are safe at higher pressures? Or improve the aerodynamics?
Why do they let the automakers run the test? Instead the regulatory bodies should ask for 3 production samples and an application fee and then the regulatory body should do the tests themselves.
DOG BITES MAN!
The Mini's a sweet little car. My wife's 1994 Honda Civic got 40 to 45 mpg depending on how close we were to the ocean which I thought odd.
Wait....that's not how cars are supposed to be sold? The dealer assured me that was "perfectly normal"
When Consumer Reports wants to test a product (including cars), they don't go to the manufacturer, much less let the manufacturer run the testing process! They buy the product anonymously at normal retail, and then test it in their own labs. Why can't regulatory agencies like the EPA and its European Union equivalent do the same thing?
You both drive like pussies.
You can get your mileage well under 20. Just maintain over 5k RPM at all times.
Note: The early 90s CIVICs weigh less then the mini.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Only "obvious" to neurotypicals.
To a sociopath the lack of external verification and penalties makes it "obvious" that society intends the test to be cheated by those clever enough to do it.
All in all, I'm pretty content...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
creativity like elon musk?
remember the standard the media held him and his car to?
guilty until proven inocient.
I'm continually amazed at how much more effort and creativity people seem to put into shortcuts to money and various get rich quick schemes, rather than boring, honest work.
Suit A:"We're losing money and marketshare! What are we going to do"
Suit B: "The same thing we do every time"
Both in unison: "Layoffs and hire some more lobbyists!"
I've heard there are a lot of consumers who like to be open the doors too.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
A few years back I remembered reading an article from car and driver about them winning a MGP competition put on for the original Honda Insight. The games they played make the cheating going on here seem like the work of petty amateurs. Of course that was for fun and bragging rights for the magazines that participated so excessive bending of the rules was to be expected. If interested I suggest reading the article "How We Won the Insight Fuel-Economy Challenge. Without Cheating. Much". I am surprised that the car manufactures in the EU also don't try lowering the oil level so that it barely covers the oil pickup tube when running thus keeping the crank from hitting the oil in the sump or have most vehicles gone over to a dry sump setup. Also if they are going to disconnect the alternator why not also disconnect the water pump and replace it with an electric one like the drag racers do? Granted it won't work for an extended period of time (the electric racing ones are fairly low volume) but I would imagine the vehicle would survive the test track with it.
Time to offend someone
Fashion ... and things like the engine not overheating, the hood and doors being able to open, and other such trivialities...
I've always wonder why we didn't have the MPG stated with the amount of weight in the car. Would a 180 lbs driver drive experience the same MPG as the same car with a 300 lbs driver and (2) 250 lbs passengers. I guess it's not politically correct to have the fine print state "mileage may very depending how fat you are"
You could just as easily put two europeans in the back seat instead. Sometimes stereotypes are real, sometimes they are rude exagerations, and sometimes they change.
"but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
Suit A:"We're losing money and marketshare! What are we going to do"
Suit B: "The same thing we do every time"
Both in unison: "Layoffs and hire some more lobbyists!"
I, too, often find myself wondering where the Animaniacs end, and Corporate America begins...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
... always use independent measuring. Corporations, even in EU, have people at the helm that are fundamental liars.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Not a real mini.
It does make me wonder if a strip of rubber around every door/seam could impact fuel efficiency enough to justify the cost though.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Personally, I like to blame broccoli for anything that isn't perfect in my life.
Hyundai actually got nailed for doing this in the US last year. They were selling Accents with an advertised 40MPG, while actually performing at 36-39 depending on the car. What ended up happening is that the car owners got a debit card with the difference plus interest, they bring the card back every year and it gets updated based on the odometer reading.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Depends on where it's placed, but yes.
If I replaced the worn-out seals around my car's windows, I could probably drop my aerodynamic drag a good 5% ('98 Ford Taurus, the weather-stripping and window seal strips are sticking outwards, thanks to warping from the hot CA sun.)
That increase in fuel efficiency alone (especially at higher speeds) would more than make up for the $30 in DIY stuff to replace it all by hand.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The obvious takeaway everyone is missing is that this is a nice list of things you can do to increase fuel efficiency, in some cases by up to 25% to 50%! I mean really... Is over-inflating the tires (by the car spec, not the tire safety rating) and taping over infrequently used body gaps all that hard? I even know racers that had body color match vinyl tape for just this purpose... Some hyper-milers even disconnect the alternator and change the battery at home...
Suit A:"We're losing money and marketshare! What are we going to do"
Suit B: "The same thing we do every time"
Both in unison: "Layoffs and hire some more lobbyists!"
I, too, often find myself wondering where the Animaniacs end, and Corporate America begins...
In this case, Corporate Europe...but nonetheless valid.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
The ECU in many cars is tuned to recognize an EPA drive cycle and react accordingly. The drive cycles are apparently pretty specific and, much like video drivers, can be gamed to get higher performance under specific conditions. The EPA uses pretty bad testing methodology too and it's only slowly being updated. There's an article in one of the Road and Track type mags on the stand this month detailing it and discussing the methodology, I was surprised they didn't also mention the ECU tuning
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Let them climb in through the side window like NASCAR drivers.~ Of course, you'd either need to keep the window down when you're not in your car, or you'd have to rig up a remote power window control.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
I've been looking to replace my Liberty with a Mini Countryman. One of the biggest complaints seems to be that they claim 32, real world seems 27-28.
This sounds similar to the old days of horsepower ratings, where the engines were stripped of a accessory components, exhaust system, and so on.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
A better idea rather than subtracting a percentage is to use a site like Fuelly.com to look and see what others are getting for mileage in the same car before buying one...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
This isn't just a european thing. When do we get the investigation into US car-makers fake fuel economy ratings as of late?
For example, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Equinox#Debate_about_EPA_fuel_economy_ratings
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Have an independent company go out and buy each vehicle in question from a retailer, perform the same standard tests and then compare the results to what the manufacturer claims their test results where. Then fine them if the independent test disagrees with their claimed test results by more than a fixed percentage. Make the fines progressive, based on the number of units sold and geometrically increasing with the number of vehicles which don't match the reported tests.
If you make the fines bad enough, manufactures will clean up their acts... It won't cost much either, because you can just turn around and sell the slightly used vehicles for most of what you purchased it for (assuming you don't want to do crash testing too).
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Possibly ... I suspect durability could be a challenge. They are going as far as active louvers in the grill, etc. these days on some vehicles (e.g. some Ford Focus models) though, and new models have much tighter clearances around body openings/joints than was common in the past.
Yes, a REAL Mini, by about 30 kilograms.
Didn't count on my stepbrother having a weight-sensitive lift, did ya? He runs a full-course auto shop, down to inspections for emissions.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Doesn't mean they shouldn't be regulated more strictly.
How am I supposed to compare two vehicles based on their mpg? Hope and pray that they're both defrauding me equally?
They are in Europe
http://cars.uk.msn.com/features/green-motoring/car-fuel-economy-the-truth-about-mpg
Simple. Animaniacs is MUCH more clever than Corporate America...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Be fair: Real minis came in many, many flavors.
The only one worth shit was the Cooper S.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
And barely worth a shit it was. I've got an old Prelude double the weight that gets better MPG/KPL.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I got the best mileage I ever had with my Saturn driving at high altitude in Colorado. Less oxygen meant less fuel to keep the correct ratio. Of course, the power went down as well since it was burning less gasoline with each cycle. There my have been an additional MPG increase due to less dense air as well.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Like, duh! I strongly suspect the surprise is not that car manufacturers do this, but that they don't get caught more often.
But wait, does this mean if I strip the inside of the car and tape over gaps in the panels, I can get up to 50% increase in gas mileage? Hmm....
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Obvious depends on your point of view. If your aim is to inflate the metrics, it is obvious that you do whatever (is legal) you can to make your car do well on the metrics. It is obvious that manufacturers would game the system. And if a customer complains? Well, it is obvious you trade off lawsuit costs against profits.
What is more striking to me is that we seem to be relying on the manufacturers to run the tests and report their figures. This is "obviously" wrong. If a regulator were to drive the car, they would see any taping over. They would notice that the interiors have been stripped down. And they should put a stop to it. Basically, they should be given a car by the manufacturers, and the regulator should hire someone to do the road tests. What next, the safety dummy has sensors in places that won't get triggered or exposed to large shocks to game safety requirements? "Obviously" the car tested will not be the same as the one I buy off a dealership: they might tweak the code to change firing timings or something similar. But it shouldn't be significantly different.
I detest it when cars are tested on the Nurburgring to tweak their design. I will mostly never get a chance to drive that circuit. Yet many manufacturers test on those conditions. It isn't the unrealistic nature that bothers me. I feel that all tests should be conservative (drive the car at 150 mph or some such ridiculous speed - much larger than any car would go - to do crash tests). Instead, they go to wrong extreme of unrealistic tests - instead of being conservative, they are optimistic.
The Mini's a sweet little car. My wife's 1994 Honda Civic got 40 to 45 mpg depending on how close we were to the ocean which I thought odd.
Probably altitude, not proximity to ocean. Just that the two usually go hand in hand.
At higher altitudes, the air is less dense which will reduce the air resistance. While the less dense air will also negatively affect the power your engine can generate, most of us don't drive cars anywhere near the levels where a few extra HP will make a noticeable difference to fuel economy.
Well one good thing this shows is that gas economy is at least seen as an attractive quality. They wouldn't falsify it if they didn't think their customers valued such things. I remember not long ago when people didn't care anything about gas mileage. But now it is important, so in this sense there is some progress.
But human nature is what it is - so much easier to cheat than to work at making something good. Hopefully the government steps in and punishes the offenders.
Over inflating tires is dangerous. The whole idea of the correct tire pressure is to give you the full width of the tire to grip the road. If you over inflate, the tire might not blow, but your stopping distance when having to do an emergency stop, will increase dramatically. The exact amount of grip you lose will also make you lose control in corners much quicker.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
I won't let Europeans into my house, and I'll be damned if I'm letting them into my car!
Your political party doesn't care about your rights and only represents corporate interests.
Under deceleration the wheels keep the engine turning, which is why it can cut the fuel supply. Once you get slow enough or put in the clutch it will start feeding fuel to the engine again.
This is why you don't want to put in the clutch until you're almost stopped, in order to keep fuel shut off for as long as possible.
They make cars run horribly to get good emission figures in just the standard test. They actually actively harm real world emissions and economy figures just to get a better test score.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Suit A:"We're losing money and marketshare! What are we going to do"
Suit B: "The same thing we do every time"
Both in unison: "Layoffs and hire some more lobbyists!"
I, too, often find myself wondering where the Animaniacs end, and Corporate America begins...
In this case, Corporate Europe...but nonetheless valid.
Oh, lord, you mean it's spread across the Atlantic?
Quarantine!!! QUARANTINE NOW!!!
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Why are you making excuses for such companies?
As consumers outside the boardroom, we don't know what the true story is, even if everyone WERE motivated to follow such events. These things are not crystal clear.
Even if it were as simple as "Company X is laying people off to pad their pockets, so buy from company Y instead," and consumers were still supporting company X, in what way does that absolve company X of anything?
The fact that people can get rich in this way suggests it needs to be regulated, not that everyone approves of it or it's okay to let it continue.
When purchasing my dishwasher a couple of years ago I went through the manual to learn what each program button does. To my astonishment one of the programs under "eco" label was described as: "Do not use. Only for EU dishwasher economy testing." How ingenuous!
-- "In theory, theory is the same as practice, but not in practice."
I'm sceptical that stripping seams would make that much difference, you'd be better off with rear wheel skirts and smooth full-moon hub caps on the front. Before that I'd go to low viscosity synthetic engine and transmission oils and bearing grease, then the above. Next I'd get rid of any badges in the airstream and mod the car so the winshield wiper park below the hood out of the airflow. After that you need to get really radical like decent air dams, full belly pans, grill shutters and boat-tail the car. Lots of ideas over at Ecomoder's forums.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I drive mainly with the cruise-control set and saw little difference between car manufacturer's inflation and fully inflated tires. My wife on the other hand saw a consistant real improvement in millage, I figured it was due to her not speeding as much. The additional road-feel through fully inflated tires feels like your going faster!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
well the boring honest work would make the car ugly I suppose.
but it's amazing if throwing away some insulation and ducttape optimizing the vents can get you 25-50% boost in efficiency. I CALL SHENIGANS on it actually.. that vague number must have been cherry picked in order to tweak a better headline.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The current test cycle setup is rubbish, even with approximations made for load on the rolling road based on the coast-down phase of the test. Undue importance is put on CO2 emissions whilst disregarding the really nasty exhaust gases, but obviously that's because most EU countries base their tax solely on CO2 output now.
That said, the car makers are not doing themselves any favours by playing around the edges of the stated legislation, even if you bear in mind that pushing the rules to the limits is one of the basic principles of motor racing in any format, and would be the default mindset of those engineering the cars.
Constructing a truly even, fair and representative test will be terribly difficult, if not impossible. I wonder if any changes they make will be worth the effort at all.
"Can you analyze tap water by looking at it?"
if it's brown and smells like death.. yeah, you can, despite what the guy in the lobby says it's probably not good for you.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
If you have been running your car on regular oil for more then 20-30K miles the oil has formed a glaze on the edge of the gaskets. The gaskets have dried out past the glaze.
When you add synthetic oil it starts to dissolve the glaze. When it gets to the dry gasket it often starts to slow leak. Usually that happens about 3 months after you switch to synthetic.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Changing to lower viscosity lubricants seems like a good way to waste money on repairs downstream... Use "good" lubricants, sure - but putting 5wt oil in your transmission to reduce the parasitic drivetrain loss is a good way to spend money on a new transmission. Maybe I'm misreading your post, but it sounds like risking the need for a major repair just to gain some miniscule fraction of a mile per gallon.
+1 Disagree
How about incorporating the "cheats" into the final design and making a legitemate 25-50% increase in economy.
Fiid - Ryhmes with Squid. Software Engineer
Go back a few years.
My wife drove an Acura TL at 22.9 MPG with Premium fuel needed so the cost is about equivalent to getting 20.
She replaces with an Avalon which gets 25.3 for about 25% more miles per currency unit.
I drove a CRV at 22.2 and replace it with a Prius station wagon (so same class of car) at 42 for about 90% improvement.
(all fuelly figures, not EPA)
And someone buys our trade-in cars and potentially replaces 15MPG older cars and gets 50% improvements. And the 15 MPGs replace 12s and so on down the food chain until the oldest get wrecked or are uneconomical to repair and thus go to the scrapyard.
Sure, there are exceptions but this is how the higher EPA figures help over time.
(It is weird to realize your old car is parked right in front of you at the shopping center.)
So, the car manufacturers are resorting to a bunch of measly tricks to squeeze out the last bit of fuel economy. But they have the solution already - all they need to do is unearth all those patents and inventions they've bought up over the years that they're sitting on and suppressing, and start putting them on their cars! The magic carburettors I've heard so much about ought to do the trick, and wham! instant improvement. They'll outsell immediately any competitor who didn't have the foresight to buy up and bury all those 'free' energy devices over the years, the fools.
YMMV. Theirs did.
Oh yeah, that's a plan... with super-sized Americans trying to squeeze a 50 inch ass through 25 inch window. Should immediately increase the amount of walking.
No better because the dots in a dot matrix are generally in a vertical line, so it makes no difference wether to fire all the pins at once for a 1 or just one of them to print a .
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
VAG cars have windows that can be opened by remote. Holding the open door locks button will roll down all the windows and holding the lock doors button will close them. Problem solved for Audi, Skoda, Seat and Volkswagen. And maybe Bugatti.
Yes you are, you have to stay within recomended tollerances, but most synthetics are slipperier and protect better than mineral oils. There are synthetics for automatics tranmissions that meet manufacturers specs, and some modern manual transmissions use engine oil. Gear oils and bearing grease are also available synthetics.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Maybe require that car manufactures seal the doors shut. This would also solve the "too old to drive" problem--once you get too old to be able to climb in/out of the window, you can't drive.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
Fair enough, it still seems like an awful lot of work for a miniscule gain in efficiency. But, I suppose everybody's gotta have a hobby! I prefer to juggle geese.
+1 Disagree
That's the easy stuff, there are guys installing custom air dams and full belly pan, boat-tail rear-ends, fender skirts (front and back)
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
So what. Feel good for the US? The EU cars are still more efficient then the US cards. Even when there are from the same car manufacture. Which is far more interesting: Same manufacture says that new US laws are to tough while at the same time selling cars in Europe which fulfil the new law for 10+ years.
Only 0/0 is undefined and not infinitive.
Fair enough. As long as your not comparing it to that BMW imposter :)
Politicians lie by pretending they can legislate the laws of physics, and pass stupid laws to satisfy their base, whom they have whipped into an emotional frenzy in order to gain loyalty. Or, in order to squeeze the maximum amount of money to put in their own pockets, they make unrealistic promises to two completely opposed special interests, with the result being that everyone is equally screwed.
Corporations, who need to sell products in order to pay the workers, who need to eat, and have a roof over their head, then lie to satisfy the unrealistic expectations set by the politicians. Marketing has always been about tapping on the buyers emotions, thus resulting in people foolishly parting with their money. More lies in the name of greed, duh.
This is news? People are shocked by this? There has to be a long drawn out discussion? You're telling me you are going to make a passionate argument about one side or the other being evil? This entire system is something we humans setup, and perpetuate. It's all our faults it has come to this.
The saddest thing about all of this is that less than 5% of the buying population actually wants a car that is safe, good for the environment, or gets great gas mileage. The other 95% think everyone else should own cars for these reasons, but not them.
Murphy was an optimist