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Study: Some car models consuming around 50% more fuel than official results

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Re: Study: Some car models consuming around 50% more fuel than official results

#111

Post by dtparr »

001sky wrote: post #68
rtpg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well sorry for being a fool then. It's impossible to investigate everything about every part of our lives, and personally I feel a bit cheated by these revelations. I think most people are aware there could be cheating, but not on the scale being claimed. I don't think it's unreasonable to have placed a bit of trust in the number.

that's no excuse, its basically ignorance. not personal critique, but still lots of people follow blindly things they don't understand.

Of course they do. People have limited time and energy and can't possibly be expected to have a good enough understanding of everything they touch in their daily lives to be able to "understand" them well enough to have sufficiently calibrated bullshit detectors for them all.

Maybe you're an expert in ICEs and this was obvious to you. Would you notice if your cell phone charger was actually pulling 10 amps out of the wall instead of the 1 it was rated for? What about if your non-GMO strawberries were actually created in a lab? Your organic beef injected with hormones?

The whole point of having these standards is so that consumers can rely on them and don't have to independently analyze everything they buy themselves.

Re: Study: Some car models consuming around 50% more fuel than official results

#112

Post by cannedbass »

So how many of these cars have turbos? I know the BMWs at least are mostly turbo 4-cylinders.

The whole reason manufacturers are moving to small displacement turbocharged engines over large displacement naturally aspirated engines is because the EPA MPG tests never run the engine in a range where the turbo is doing much. Put the car in the real world and the driver's lead foot makes the turbo kick in, killing fuel economy.

Ref: http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/mpg-or-performance-its-...

Re: Study: Some car models consuming around 50% more fuel than official results

#114

Post by fluxquanta »

awjr wrote: post #107

Ok let's be real here, if we put the "pollution" taxes onto fuel and not on the design of the car, this problem, in effect, goes away. There is still the issue that high efficiency, usually means running the engine at high temperatures which generates far more NOx gases. We should be taxing the amount of fuel used.

Additional fuel taxes are typically not a welcome change among the pubic. I agree that logically this is what should be done, but everyone fills up their gas tank every few hours/days/weeks and sees that price. People only buy new cars every once in a while, and they expect a large purchase price. I think psychologically taxing the vehicle and not the fuel is more of a people pleaser.

Re: Study: Some car models consuming around 50% more fuel than official results

#115

Post by mfringel »

001sky wrote: post #68
rtpg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well sorry for being a fool then. It's impossible to investigate everything about every part of our lives, and personally I feel a bit cheated by these revelations. I think most people are aware there could be cheating, but not on the scale being claimed. I don't think it's unreasonable to have placed a bit of trust in the number.

that's no excuse, its basically ignorance. not personal critique, but still lots of people follow blindly things they don't understand.

Parse error: Sentence did not include word 'sheeple'

Re: Study: Some car models consuming around 50% more fuel than official results

#116

Post by _pmf_ »

pjc50 wrote: post #9
happyscrappy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe was really led astray when they were told that diesels were better for the environment, hybrids would have been the way to go.

Europe has 'bet on diesel' for many years while hybrids have only recently become available.

All European manufacturers except Renault and BMW are hellbent on not offering attractive E mobility solutions, despite really expensive and extensive internal research programs. We in Germany have a large numbers of Smart cars in car sharing companies that are sponsored by Daimler, but it's not yet economically viable to actually buy an E-Smart (if you've driven one, it's not bad at all).

Re: Study: Some car models consuming around 50% more fuel than official results

#117

Post by saint_fiasco »

wellboy wrote: post #61

Reminds of the cycling world. Boundaries are pushed with doping and in order to stay competitive, after a while everyone is doping until the whole thing collapses. The same thing goes for bodybuilding, anyone has another example?

Capitalism.

One of the Marxist critiques of capitalism is that if an employer wants to do certain good things (like treat his workers well, pay more salaries than the bare minimum, take care of the environment and so on) he can't do that because that will raise the price of whatever he is selling and he would be outcompeted by his less altruistic rivals and go bankrupt. So every business owner has to be a bit of a psychopath to survive.

Re: Study: Some car models consuming around 50% more fuel than official results

#118

Post by bonzini »

vkjv wrote: post #86
mattlutze wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The source of the data is actually www.spritmonitor.de, which is a self-reporting mileage tracking site (like www.fuelly.com). With ~501k vehicles tracked and 8.885B kilometers tracked, the site represents ~17k kilometers per car of user-reported mileage information. Is this the best, or a reliable source, of information to start the reckoning/witch hunt to come? I'm not sure.

I thought the same. In my anecdotal experience, drivers tend to get much lower than the manufacturer mileage because they optimize for things other than fuel economy (e.g., speed). My dad taught me lots of tips on conserving fuel and thankfully I've exceeded the sticker numbers on every car I've owned.

No matter how careful I am, it's hard for me to get lower than 130% of the fuel consumption reported by the manufacturer. Perhaps I can do 120% of the reported consumption at 90 km/h, but I can hardly get lower than 140% on the highway (130 km/h) and in city traffic.

Re: Study: Some car models consuming around 50% more fuel than official results

#119

Post by maxerickson »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #51
yc1010 wrote: post #2

"On average, two-thirds of the claimed gains in CO2 emissions and fuel consumption since 2008 have been delivered through manipulating tests" How deep does this rabbit hole go :( Here in Ireland the motortax for cars newer than 2008 is based on CO2 emissions, if motorists find their tax rising due to cheating by car manufacturers thats an unexpected and direct cost to their wallets.

None of this is really new, the mostly German car lobby has resisted European emissions testing on testing strict real-world usage, as opposed to testing on a roller. Anyone who spent 10 minutes looking into this in the past years could've told you that, and it wasn't some big secret. A lot of it was stuff everyone was doing, like fitting certain tires and inflating them such that the rolling resistance is reduced. A…

Not a device though, just software to vary the engine regulation when the test is detected.

(Or more likely a mode that kicks in when non test driving is detected)

Re: Study: Some car models consuming around 50% more fuel than official results

#120

Post by nathancahill »

Zelphyr wrote: post #102
vkjv wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the same. In my anecdotal experience, drivers tend to get much lower than the manufacturer mileage because they optimize for things other than fuel economy (e.g., speed). My dad taught me lots of tips on conserving fuel and thankfully I've exceeded the sticker numbers on every car I've owned.

Care to share some of those tips?

Accelerate gradually, stay off the brakes.
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