Drivers irked as mileage fails to add up

Those fuel-economy estimates posted on new cars and trucks are baloney. The government agency in charge of them doesn’t mean them to be; in fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency seems unusually scrupulous about its fuel-economy testing.

But it’s using 30-year-old tests that assume nobody drives faster than 60 mph, or turns on the air conditioning, or accelerates hard, or drives in cold weather, or runs a mile up the road for milk and bread at the convenience store and doesn’t get the engine warmed up.

The result: a groundswell of complaints from people whose mileage isn’t as good as they thought it would be.

How far off are the numbers? No one knows for sure. When the Energy Information Administration calculates its yearly forecast of national energy consumption, it shaves about 10% off the EPA numbers.

Even Bluewater, the little-known, 8-year-old environmental group whose petition got the government going, says there’s no definitive source of real-world fuel-economy data.

If the EPA’s study leads to lower fuel-economy estimates, that could cool sales of fuel-thirsty sport-utility vehicles and other trucks these days of high gas prices. It also could prod automakers to speed development of fuel-efficient models, such as gas-electric hybrids and diesel cars, that are less profitable than SUVs and pickups.

Automakers, not surprisingly, think no change is needed.

“Consumers for the most part understand that the numbers listed (on window stickers) vary based on driving habits, based on terrain, based on a number of factors,” says Charlie Territo, spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

The fuel-economy labels on new cars and trucks say that “actual mileage will vary,” and they give a range of fuel-economy estimates for similar vehicles. But that’s in fine print. And it hasn’t stopped the gripes, heightened by the popularity of hybrid vehicles. While they achieve better fuel economy than gasoline-power vehicles do, hybrids seem to miss their EPA numbers by bigger gaps.

“Sometimes I think, ‘Sucker,’ ” says an unhappy MaryJo Meer, 37, of Chula Vista, Calif. She bought a Honda Civic gas-electric hybrid May 19 expecting close to the 47 mpg EPA rating. Instead, she’s getting 34 mpg, even though most of her driving is on the highway, where Honda’s type of hybrid does best.

“They’re actually charging us more for a car to save the environment and all that crap, and we’re not saving anything at all,” she says. “If I’d have known that, I’d have kept my SUV.”

‘People don’t drive 60′

Automakers acknowledge quietly that vehicles often fall short of the fuel-economy numbers on the window stickers. Toyota, bolder than most, candidly says its vehicles get 10% to 15% less than the EPA estimates in real-world use.

To consumers, the EPA tests seem absurd. “People don’t drive 60. People drive 80 or 85,” says Abigail Ferrance, 24, of Columbia, S.C. She wants good mileage because she drives a lot in her job. But her mistrust of the EPA numbers has made a decision difficult. “I understand the limits of technology, but I would like to know an accurate amount. I’d like to know that what I’m being told when I buy a vehicle is accurate,” she says.

“The EPA tests are 30 years old, and they are broken,” says David Friedman, a research director at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “People look to the EPA as an authoritative source to give them information on the products they buy, but (the fuel-economy rating) only works if you drive the way they drive.” UCS says the EPA numbers are at least 10% too high.

The EPA, in fact, does not test most vehicles. Automakers do, using EPA standards, and tell the government the results. It’s not even always necessary to conduct tests, according to federal regulations: “In lieu of submitting actual data from a test vehicle, a manufacturer may provide fuel-economy values derived from an analytical” calculation approved by the feds.

The EPA randomly tests vehicles to keep car companies honest but gets to only 15% of new vehicles each year.

Criticism of the numbers pricks the EPA, which sees itself as helping guide buyers, not misleading them. “We have never represented that this is what people will get when they drive it home,” insists Chris Grundler, head of the EPA lab in Ann Arbor, Mich., where testing is conducted. “It’s not obvious to me that our (estimates) are wrong.” What’s wrong, he says, is that people regard the numbers as guarantees instead of guidelines. What’s needed, he says, “is a consumer education program, not changes to the federal test procedure.”

In 1984, responding to consumer complaints that its numbers didn’t match on-the-road experience, EPA cut 22% from its highway fuel-economy number and trimmed the city estimate 10%, starting with 1985 models.

“The Bluewater Network is suggesting that it’s still way off,” Grundler says. Bluewater says the EPA numbers might be as much as 34% too high, because driving conditions today are so different from when the tests were created.

Typical difference

Bluewater, best known for tackling pollution by jet skis and motorboats, cites dozens of tests and studies by others that suggest the typical difference is 15% to 20%. “We lay out a bunch of studies to show it’s not just us; there’s a lot of evidence” the estimates are too high, says Elisa Lynch, author of the organization’s comments to EPA and director of Bluewater’s global warming program.

Grundler’s willing to agree with Bluewater on one point: “There’s more urban congestion (than in 1984); they’re right about that.” Urban driving uses the most fuel because it involves a lot of acceleration and a lot of idling at stoplights and in traffic, when the engine’s running and the car’s not moving.

Bluewater’s petition for a change in how EPA calculates the fuel-economy numbers was filed in June 2002 and addressed to both the Department of Transportation and EPA. DOT decided it was most relevant to EPA and referred it there last year for consideration.

The issue is important to Bluewater and other environmental groups because the more fuel that’s burned, the more carbon dioxide, or CO

, is emitted in the exhaust. CO

is a so-called greenhouse gas. Environmentalists say it contributes to global warming.

If EPA adjusts its published fuel-economy numbers downward significantly, that could send buyers stampeding away from SUVs and other trucks, a development that environmentalists would welcome.

But cutting the published numbers 15%