Showing posts with label Fuel Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fuel Economy. Show all posts
Monday, 15 April 2013
Prius Fuel Economy Update
Click on through to the Prius MPG review page to see the latest update. Little improvement with the weather being less cold in the last week. It certainly has been atypical to date. Spring might be here though. Currently averaging just over 53 mpg with the current tank but we have had a couple of longish extra urban runs.
Thursday, 14 March 2013
Car Manufacturers May Be Publishing False MPG Figures
I heard an interesting article on today's editipon of You And Yours on BBC Radio 4 - listen to the programme on this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r5s1r. The programme asked:
... does your car give the fuel economy it was advertised with? No? Well it may not be your driving. New research is blaming the manufacturers.
This may account for why many Toyota Prius owners are disappointed with the actual fuel economy they experience. According to the researcher interviewed on the programme, many manufacturers, especially in Europe, can 'tune' the car that is being tested for the official mpg figure. I was amazed to hear that they can blank off grills, remove wing mirrors, fit slick tyres, inflate tyres to high pressure as well as other 'tricks' like 'remove' the brakes by lifting off the calipers so that there is no friction contact between disc pads and brake discs. Apparently, the divergence between official mpg figures and actual mpg figurs has been increasing over the years - from about 7% in 2001 to 23% of late. Time to apply some consumer pressure, is it not?
... does your car give the fuel economy it was advertised with? No? Well it may not be your driving. New research is blaming the manufacturers.
This may account for why many Toyota Prius owners are disappointed with the actual fuel economy they experience. According to the researcher interviewed on the programme, many manufacturers, especially in Europe, can 'tune' the car that is being tested for the official mpg figure. I was amazed to hear that they can blank off grills, remove wing mirrors, fit slick tyres, inflate tyres to high pressure as well as other 'tricks' like 'remove' the brakes by lifting off the calipers so that there is no friction contact between disc pads and brake discs. Apparently, the divergence between official mpg figures and actual mpg figurs has been increasing over the years - from about 7% in 2001 to 23% of late. Time to apply some consumer pressure, is it not?
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