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?"

Comments

Not surprised

[s4ltyd0g]

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.

Re:Not surprised

[Russ1642]

This needs to be modded up simply because it's a computer analogy for a car issue.

European Magic

[MightyYar]

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.

Re:European Magic

[Anonymous Coward]

It's made even more hilarious by the nonlinearity of the "miles per gallon" metric vs. the "liters per 100km" metric and by the fact that a British gallon and an American gallon are two different sizes.

Re:European Magic

[bluefoxlucid]

It's actually the opposite. Gaining 10mpg over 40mpg is pathetically little, while gaining 5mpg over 20mpg is HUGE. Dropping 0.5L per 100km is the same amount of saved fuel regardless of if you have a 7L/100km or 3.5L/100km car. Thus it's easy to hype your 30, 35mpg cars and tell people they need to upgrade their 28mpg car, when really that's a huge fucking waste.

The real world effect is that Americans think what we need is shiny new expensive 40mpg hybrids, when the best thing we could do is get the existing 15mpg old-ass broken down shitheaps off the road in exchange for newer 22mpg used cars that exist already. The environmental savings would be bigger than if we just replaced the natural new flow of new cars with a natural new flow of new cars with slightly better mileage. i.e. what's important is the flow of average-mileage used cars into the hands of people who aren't going to buy a new car!

Re:Slow news day?

[rickb928]

Most of the cars I've driven could meet or exceed the MPG specs.

My '98 Saab 900 SET Convertible did 25-28MPG on my mostly highway commute right up to 208K miles. That's winning.

My '95 Explorer was hitting 17-19MPG on the same commute, at 318k miles. Winning.

My 2004 Mitsubishi Lancer OZ Rally is hitting 27-31MPG, same commute, 212K miles. Winning.

My wife is driving the 2000 Explorer V8 at 143K miles, and is getting 16-18MPG. Not so winning, but not bad.

Her commute and mine are similar; relatively quick in the morning, stop and go in the afternoon.

Other cars I have driven that met their MPG estimates include various versions of the Taurus, Focus, Malibu Maxx, and a collection of forgettable crap. The older ones, pre-1990, were disappointing.

MPG results are highly influenced by the driver, the traffic, and vehicle condition, but the driver I think counts a lot.

Re:Human Nature

[interkin3tic]

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!"

Re:Duh !

[K. S. Kyosuke]

The single biggest difference to fuel consumption is between the seat and the steering wheel.

I can confirm that this is true. When you remove that element for good, your monthly fuel consumption will drop to zero.

Re:Shocking

[UltraZelda64]

Optimistic? I think the word you meant was 'bullshit'. There is a difference between something that may be possible under 100% perfect conditions (yet nearly 100% unlikely in real-world conditions)... and something that has been completely rigged in such ways that even in perfect theoretical conditions it is impossible for the car, unmodified and straight from the factory, to ever come close to such manipulated stats.

This is worse than controlled, theoretical lab tests... this is downright crooked. There is absolutely nothing 'optimistic' about it. This is fraud.

Don't over inflate!

[dutchwhizzman]

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.