Hyundai Kia fined for lying about fuel economy

[MJCQQ]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29887117Both companies have been fined in the United States for lying about their fuel efficiency figures. I know the article says "exaggerating" but we all know what that means.I wonder if this will make such companies start showing realistic fuel economy and efficiency figures here in Europe and the rest of the world. To be honest some of the figures quoted are pure fantasy and real fuel efficiency comes nowhere close.

[Eziv2730]

That won't be the case here in Europe or, more precisely, the European Union. The "official" figures here are the EC figures -- all cars are tested the same way. The manufacturers cannot test it their way and come up with their own numbers. However, that doesn't prevent the "official" figures being way off the mark in real life driving. There are many reasons for it. First, the cars on these EC tests are only driven for 3km and most of the time the cars are stationary. Most of the driving is also at low speeds and obviously in a garage, not on a street where there could be wind, etc. So all of this helps to explain why one who "drives like a nun" still can't match the "official" figures.

[supergrover]

Yep, all done on a rolling road over a few minutes, with all ancillaries such as fan, radio, lights, aircon switched off. To be honest, manufacturers have been known to design the gearing etc solely to get a good figure in this test rather than in normal driving.

[Eziv2730]

[quote="supergrover"] To be honest, manufacturers have been known to design the gearing etc solely to get a good figure in this test rather than in normal driving. [/QUOTE]
Could be the case. Start/stop is definitely one of those things that help the EC tests. In fact, Deutsche Welle -- Germany's international broadcaster -- in one of its programmes once tested the start/stop systems and found that whereas in those almost-sterile test conditions they save fuel, in real life they offer little to no savings, apart from the CO2 emissions.

[Qash]

There are for example allowed to tape the car to achieve less wind drag and test the car downhill up to 5%.

[Eziv2730]

Yes, the point obviously is that these tests do not represent real life driving. If someone interested, you can read about the tests, for instance, here: http://www.dft.gov.uk/vca/fcb/the-fuel- ... scheme.asp

[Gel]

Contribute your mpg figures here: http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/Spare Wheel debate:http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/

[Eziv2730]

[quote="Gel"]
Contribute your mpg figures here: http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/Spare Wheel debate:http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/[/QUOTE]
There is even a larger and more accurate mpg database, though there needs to be a commitment to it: http://www.spritmonitor.de/en/

[Deleted User 1571]

The test is standardised. Although manufacturers can self certify their official fuel economy figures, they are audited and any that are found to cheat, well, they are 'outed' and possibly fined, like Hyundai/Kia.The purpose of the figures is not only to give an indication of an individual car model's fuel economy potential, but mostly to enable a comparison to be made with other vehicles or engine choices, within and across brands. Why people have difficulty with this concept, I have no idea. Even above, it seems that people believe that manufacturers can write their own rules when conducting these tests, or that they should achieve or exceed the quoted figures. That is not the point, although they are good figures to aim for.Also, someone mentioned that stop/start did not save fuel but did save CO2 emissions. In fact the two are very much linked because the C02 is only produced by burning fuel. If it saves C02 it saves fuel.

[Eziv2730]

[quote="Quacker"]The purpose of the figures is not only to give an indication of an individual car model's fuel economy potential, but mostly to enable a comparison to be made with other vehicles or engine choices, within and across brands. Why people have difficulty with this concept, I have no idea. [/QUOTE]
I suppose one of the difficulties I and probably others have that you cannot really compare cars based on these results. The difference between the official and actual figures vary a great deal from car to car and engine to engine. Our beloved Qashqai is a case in point where my driving causes the actual fuel consumption being almost twice as high compared to the "official" figures. On the BMW 320 that I used to drive the difference was no more than 25%. On the previous shape Lexus IS the difference was way more than twice as big. I once come across an article where this point was also raised -- that official figures cannot really be used as a benchmark -- and one of the conclusions was that cars with bigger engines and/or higher "official" mpg figures generally did better in real life conditions than others. I believe that's generally true, although surely there are many exceptions as well.