Fuel Fiasco MkII: EPA To Investigate Ford's EPA Ratings
Consumer Reports’ story about two Ford hybrids falling way short of their official 47 MPG number has attracted the EPA’s attention. The agency “will look at the report and data,” it told Reuters.
Last week, Consumer Reports said the Fusion hybrid delivers 39 MPG both on the highway and in the city. The C-Max rated a combined 37 MPG in Consumer Reports’ test. Ford said both vehicles get 47 miles per gallon. CR called it “the largest discrepancy between our overall-mpg results and the estimates published by the EPA that we’ve seen among any current models.”
Hyundai’s failure to deliver published MPG ratings has brought new attention to the numbers. Ever since, there had been industry whispers that Hyundai is not the only case.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I am looking forward to the resolution of this. It may be that Ford is exonerated by the EPA, not that it will change the real world figures. Fact is Hyundia "made a mistake" in their calculations of the effects of aerodynamics on the EPA test cycle which is performed on a dyno.
Will there be any investigation into the Toyota hybrids since two of the top four listed by CR were Toyota's. I won`t hold my breath for an article about that from BS.
Automakers overstating their MPG's? This new trend is unbelievable! My god what's next, politicians that lie?
One of the big problems with the EPA test is that they measure the emissions from the tailpipe as part of the spec. How this works I have no idea but obviously they have gotten it to work... for regular gas engines. Once you go to hybrids and small diesels it falls apart and that's why there are so many discrepancies.