Prius the worst offender for inaccurate milage claims... (apparently)

At least the Page 3 girls are cute;-)

 

getting a 404 page not found error...

At least we know the reason for this so called problem... the EPA tests are horrible! everyone is off by roughly the same percentage for average drivers... thus with high mileage you end up off by more

 

Yes, but the real crime of this article is that it round-aboutly says Toyota is deliberately misleading buyers... it doesn't rectify this baldfaced lie until the end of the article. How many people do YOU know who read an entire article?

Article Text:
MOST cars are far less fuel efficient than manufacturers state, a study has found.

The worst performer is the hybrid petrol-electric Toyota Prius, which does only 52 miles per gallon, nearly 14mpg below Toyota’s claim.

On average, cars use 8 per cent more fuel than manufacturers estimate, research by What Car? magazine showed.

Drivers pay an average of £87 a year more for fuel than they would if manufacturers’ claims were accurate.

Eight of the top ten worst performers were small cars which tend to be bought because of their fuel economy.

The Kia Picanto 1.1 did 46mpg compared with the claimed figure of 57.6mpg. Smart Fortwo achieved 51.5mpg instead of 60.1mpg, the Peugeot 107 54mpg not 61.4mpg, and the Toyota Aygo 54mpg instead of 61.4mpg.

The magazine calculated what car owners can expect by using an electronic meter inserted into the cars’ fuel systems to measure the fuel used over identical routes and conditions.

Steve Fowler, editor of What Car?, said: “The fault lies not with the manufacturers but the method of testing cars’ economy enforced by the EU. Tests are carried out in laboratories with only gentle acceleration and at high temperatures — very different to real driving conditions.

“The EU should adopt a more realistic system suited to the way motorists drive, to provide accurate data.â€

 

The worst performer is the hybrid petrol-electric Toyota Prius, which does only 52 miles per gallon, nearly 14mpg below Toyota’s claim.

Wait, Toyota claims the Prius can do 66 mpg?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Soylent @ Aug 4 2006, 10:21 AM) [snapback]297636[/snapback]</div>

In the UK, yes.

The article is from a UK paper.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Soylent @ Aug 4 2006, 10:21 AM) [snapback]297636[/snapback]</div>

They're talking about UK mpg.... Different from ours. divide that number by roughly 1.2

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Aug 4 2006, 08:26 AM) [snapback]297610[/snapback]</div>

I hav achieved EPA esitmated mileage with every car I have had until our 2005 Chrysler Pacifica. Prior to that I had a 1995 Ford Explorer and a 2001 Hyundai Sonata. I bought the Sonata use and never looked up the actual EPA estimates but it averaged between 20 and 24 MPG.

My Explorer got EPA numbers until a year a two after I purchased it and California did a major fuel reform. I lost about 4 mpg when that happened. I was getting about 23 on long highway trips and it went to about 19 overnight.

Our Chrysler is rated 24/17. But on California gas it is more like 21/15.

I drive my Prius mostly on the freeway between Sacramento and the bay area (I have projects in Berkeley, Oakland and Palo Alto) and I have been averaging about 52 mpg. The car gets close to 60 mpg in heavy, bay area commute traffic - the kind of traffic that moves and average of 25-25 miles per hour. The mileage goes way down in grinding slow, 5 mile per hour, stop n go (like yesterday coming through El Cerrito and Richmond).

Even on "Nevada gas" I bet the average driver would see far below the estimated 60 mpg city in a Prius. I would bet many of the regulars in this forum are not average - most of us are very conscious of how we use the accelerator, brakes, coasting, etc. - and even then I don't think I can get 60 mpg out of my Prius in suburban Sac. Like my wife, the average driver that gets in a Prius and drives like any other car will probably see city mpg in the 30's. Nothing to be ashamed of when you consider most cars around you are getting less than 20, but nothing near "advertised."

For those reading here that don't have a Prius (thinking about one or something) - The 2006 is rated 51 highway and 60 city. I get 51 on the highway if I keep it under 70 miles per hour. Honestly I set my cruise control at 69 miles per hour. I found that doing 70 miles per hour was just enough to keep the average under 50mpg.

 

On my last car, I got exactly what the combined stats said I would.

(We have urban (from cold) extra-urban (open road, warmed up) and combined, which is a mix of those two figures. Combined for the Prius is 65.7, and I get 57-58)

They don't seem to test constant speed highway driving though. Extra-urban includes lots of speeding up and slowing down I think. I could maybe get 63 or so on a whole tank of country road driving (when the figures say 68), but on long long trips at 70mph with the cc, it's always 58.

 

*I*N*T*R*E*S*T*I*N*G* ...that these writers and indeed most Prius purchasers simply do not read the window labels, nor do many trouble to read the Owner's Manual. Toyota does not claim you will achieve the mileage indicated on the label... never has. I have never owned a vehicle which fully achieves the EPA estimates. I do achieve the EPA estimates for Prius highway travel regularly, never the "in town" estimates.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(wstander @ Aug 4 2006, 03:47 AM) [snapback]297566[/snapback]</div>

Yeah, but they're not online, are they?

Not to mention, their, um, measurements, are about as believable as every/anything The Sun publishes...

Consider the source, grasshopper!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(sl7vk @ Aug 4 2006, 07:29 AM) [snapback]297642[/snapback]</div>

IMPERIAL gallons...where one pint equals 20 ounces...take THAT beer drinkers!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Charles Suitt @ Aug 4 2006, 11:13 AM) [snapback]297786[/snapback]</div>

Exactly what do the window labels and the owner's manual have to say on this subject matter in Great Britain, where the author of this article is located?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveG @ Aug 4 2006, 06:29 AM) [snapback]297561[/snapback]</div>

Hi Dave,

Its hard to be sure, but the term "differences" would imply its a faulty article. Its should be proportionally rated. A difference comparison will always look bad to a high mileage vehicle. For example a M1A1 tank probably gets like a .5 mpg at 55 mph on the highway (which they can actually do) , but at 65 that might drop to .45 mpg (most of the drag is in friction due to the massive wieght). Now a Prius is going to get like 50 mpg at 65 mph, versus the rated 51 mpg. So, by diferences the Prius is twice as worse as the M1A1 ( 1 mpg difference for the Prius, .05 mpg difference for the M1A1), but by proportionalities the M1A1 dropped to 90 percent of its hypothetical EPA rating, and the Prius dropped to 98 percent.

Now the M1A1 thing is all made up. But this illustrates the point. The article starts off like it was a con-job, or ingoramously written/reported. Without the link we cannot tell if it the writer just made a mathematical term error, or was truely devious or over-employed for the job at hand.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Charles Suitt @ Aug 4 2006, 11:13 AM) [snapback]297786[/snapback]</div>

I get about 50 MPG on my commute: slighly higher than that in the AM, when it's cooler, the commute is an overall downgrade, and traffic isn't quite as stop and go. In the PM, it's warmer, I have a slight uphill commute, and the traffic is (often) hideous. Lots of stop and go can kill the mileage.

I'm currently averaging 46 mpg overall on the current tank. This includes some short weekend trips, which also kills the mileage.

I'm very happy with those figures; it's 3X what I was getting with the last car. I've never paid a lot of attention to EPA ratings, because I've never expected to achieve them. And I would rather drive the car than play the "eke out the highest MPG" game in any case...

Frankly, I hate magazine articles like the one cited. They pretend to inform while scooping out misinformation by the bucket.

 

Clearly these guys use the usual "foot to the floor" method of testing small cars and then moan when their fuel use is high. Jerks :angry:

 

Hmmm. In the US, the sticker says 51 mpg highway. I drive the car mostly on the highway and in the summer I get between 50 and 52 mpg. That's with mileage robbing oxygenated fuel. It doesn't get much closer than that.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(donee @ Aug 4 2006, 08:28 PM) [snapback]297995[/snapback]</div>

I agree. Consider this: if you have a 10% difference in a 50 MPG car and you drive 100 miles, that an extra 0.2 gallons. But a 10% difference in a 10 MPG car means an extra 1.0 gallons for that 100 miles. So percentage differences in high mileage cars is less significant than low mileage cars in terms of fuel usage.

Most of the world measures car efficiency in terms of liters per 100 km. This is essentially the inverse of miles per gallon, and therefore better shows efficiency variations where they really matter (in low mileage cars). I think it's a much better metric (no pun intended).

 

The link in the original message no longer works. This subject has recently been discussed in several publications in the UK. This is what The Times article had to say in part:

Sounds familiar?

 

So on a recent trip to the mountains with the family, we averaged 56.5 MPG on the highway. Good enough for me. At many times we were well over 65, other times we weren't. You can't make a reasonable arguement the the Prius doesn't meet it's own high standards. And yes the EPA test is old, outdated and for all practical purposes pretty worthless for true measure. There are lots of good sources for determining a car's expected MPG online, I doubt they spent any time looking for them though.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(deh2k @ Aug 5 2006, 12:01 PM) [snapback]298211[/snapback]</div>

well thats some logic...its okay for the mileage to be wrong because its wrong by less...I like your logic...that means if I don't get the lowest grade in a class then i deserve an A

30 person class
29A
1F

i applaud your productive use of logic