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EPA revises fuel economy tests
1/11/06

Hi everyone. Michelle Robinson, Washington office director of UCS’s Clean Vehicles Program, here with my very first blog. I wanted to chime in because a lot of hard work we have been doing with the EPA to get its seriously outdated fuel economy testing system updated is bearing some fruit with the big announcement yesterday that it is revising its testing procedures.

While not the perfect long-term solution, which would be a totally new testing process that is updated on an ongoing basis, the proposed testing revisions are an important step in the right direction. Higher speeds, harder acceleration, heavier traffic, shorter trips, and increasing use of power-hungry accessories like air conditioning tend to reduce fuel economy but are not accounted for in the EPA’s current tests. Over the next several years, the EPA’s proposed changes would begin to account for these real-world variables, providing more reliable fuel economy information on vehicle window stickers.

The EPA’s proposed rule is open for public comment for 60 days. If you want, you can find out how to write to the EPA directly or, if you’d like to avail yourself of our sample letter and background information before sending your comments, you can wait for our action alert. We’ll have it up in a week or two.

Now, you might be concerned that hybrids are taking a bigger hit than conventional vehicles in terms of percentage drop in fuel economy reflected on window stickers. This may lead to the “hybrids are a hoax” knee-jerk response by some in the media. But bear this in mind: hybrids vehicles using their technology to boost fuel economy and reduce emissions are still among the cleanest, most efficient vehicles on the road, and this proposal will not change that. This just means that consumers considering a hybrid can now have more confidence in the numbers they see on the window stickers.

More importantly, if you actually calculate the amount of gasoline a hybrid will save you compared with the average vehicle, the results are nearly the same using the current fuel economy values and the new values in the EPA's proposal. This is because an eight percent drop in fuel economy for a 24 mpg vehicle and a 16 percent drop for a 48 mpg vehicle both actually correspond to the same volume of gasoline. For example, comparing gas use for the 24 mpg vs. the 48 mpg vehicle over 100 miles, choosing the 48 mpg car would save you 2.084 gallons of gas with the old numbers, and 2.049 gallons with the revisions—a less than two percent difference. In the end, consumers may see comparatively little change when they crunch the numbers.

So truth be told, hybrid technology is good, but it can still get better both in development and application, and the same can be said of conventional gasoline technology. We’ll stick around and keep pushing to make sure that is the vehicle future we’re going to live in and that the EPA’s new vehicle testing plan will provide better fuel economy information for all consumers.

Posted by: MRob 1/11/06

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