Discontent Grows With EPA Mileage Testing System - CSM

[hatrack]

Call it a gentler, constructive form of road rage: Helen Shondell has given the Environmental Protection Agency a piece of her mind. Every workday, Sister Helen - a Roman Catholic nun in Birmingham, Mich. - drives 20 miles round-trip in her 2003 Nissan Sentra. While her new car is comfortable, Sister Helen is not a happy commuter.

When she bought her Nissan, the window sticker indicated a government rating of 31 combined miles per gallon. But the car really gets only 27 to 28 m.p.g. So, Sister Helen filled out a "citizen survey" organized by Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which ends Monday - part of a wider effort by the EPA to solicit public comment about whether to adjust its decades-old fuel-economy tests.

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"The fundamental problem is that the fuel-economy test the EPA uses is over 30 years old," says David Friedman, research director of the UCS's clean-vehicles program. "Think how you drove 30 years ago. People drive faster on highways today, there's more urban driving, more congestion in cities." The result: Fuel-economy numbers the EPA pastes on car windows overstate actual results by at least 10 percent, according to a UCS analysis of Energy Information Administration data. Those sticker numbers are themselves derived, in part, from formulas.

Since the 1980s, the EPA has employed "adjustment factors" to bring test results into closer alignment with the real world. Right now, those factors knock an additional 10 percent from city driving and 22 percent from highway driving results for each model. And each EPA sticker warns that results will vary depending on the driver and the type of driving."

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http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0715/p12s01-wmgn.html

[shoelace414]

1. I have the solution

we should just scrap the EPA in total!

and then give everyone tax cuts.

[NNadir]

4. George! What are you doing at DU? Scouting the opposition?

:-)

You really should ask Uncle Dick before you venture off alone.

[sybylla]

2. I don't know, seems like they are apologizing for the EPA

I mean, I have lived in the same house for 14 years, had the same driving habits over the same roads. I live in the middle of nowhere so nothing has changed in my community to change how I drive or clog traffic. And yet for the first 12 of those years I owned vehicles that got at or above the mileage ratings. My new 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix can't manage to come within 2 miles of its supposed rating even with pure interstate driving.

I think it has more to do with the oil barrons running the administration and, by default, the EPA.

[NickB79]

3. Bring back the 55mph speed limit, that should help

I already try to drive 60-65 on 70mph lanes, but usually get honks and dirty looks from NASCAR wanna-bes and have to either speed up or get run off the road.

[NNadir]

5. Actually, my Honda Accord is getting 3 mpg higher than advertised.

It's getting 30-32 mpg over the road. It was rated at 27 highway. (It's a 2000 Accord SE, nothing special.) I'm actually surprised. For several years I had a home office job, and now must commute, so I never actually was aware of the highway mileage on the Accord.
I had the car tuned up recently, inflated the tires to the maximum, and use the cruise control as much as possible. I try to keep my speed as low as I can without being rolled over by a speeding Hummer. I try to stagger my working hours to avoid traffic.

My 1996 Honda Civic actually only gets 33 mpg, but this in mixed driving.

I have heard from people that own them that Priuses actually only get in the high 40's, while Volkswagen Jetta diesels get in the low 40's.

With the Volkswagen, you can, if available, run the car on biodiesel and thus contribute very little to the greenhouse effect, although you might be contributing to soil and water depletion/pollution. I think you'll lose 5 or 10% on the fuel economy from what I've heard.