The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the
way it determines auto fuel economy ratings by the end of the year. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports, consumers have complained that the current ratings don’t reflect the actual gas mileage they’re getting in their vehicles:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it determines auto fuel economy ratings by the end of the year. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports, consumers have complained that the current ratings don’t reflect the actual gas mileage they’re getting in their vehicles:
EPA spokesman John Millett says the organization has been reviewing the MPG calculation methods carefully and plans to propose changes to the system by the end of this year. He says the last update to fuel economy measures was in 1985, and many things have changed since then.
“Speed limits are higher, congestion has increased, more vehicles are equipped with air conditioning than before. There are other factors that we need to consider as well: aggressive driving, cold weather, and there are some other regional or local impacts.”
Millett says it’s too early to say how far off the current estimates are, but many experts say there’s a ten to fifteen percent difference between official MPG ratings and real results. Millett says it’s important to remember there’s no perfect test and fuel economy ratings are estimates, not predictions.
For the GLRC, I’m Celeste Headlee.