According to The Washington Post, U.S. fuel economy is stuck in neutral: despite high gas prices, vehicle fuel economy hasn’t improved a whit compared with the previous year.
But it gets worse.
Honda’s new car fleet was the most efficient, with an average rated fuel economy of … wait for it … a whopping 24.2 mpg, just ahead of Toyota, the manufacturer of the Prius. Daimler-Chrysler trailed the pack, with new vehicles averaging just over 19 mpg.
Overall, new car fleet got about 21 mpg, based on EPA fuel economy ratings. Real-world mpg is likely lower, since most vehicles get worse mileage than their EPA ratings.
How does that stack up with previous years? Not only is new-car fuel efficiency virtually identical to the previous year’s, it’s the same as it was in 1982, right after the last oil crunch.
And by way of comparison, the Ford Model T, produced between 1908 and 1927, got around 25 to 30 mpg—and presumably that represents mpg in real-world driving, rather than the idealized driving conditions used for EPA tests.
Ok, new cars are cleaner and safer than the Model T, and they accelerate faster and tow more. But you’d think that a century of technological improvement could have jacked up efficiency just a wee bit, no?
Don’t worry, though, the automakers are on the case:
Gloria Bergquist, a spokeswoman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents many of the automakers, said the industry is building more vehicles with fuel-saving technology, but consumers are still buying heavier, faster vehicles in large numbers.
“The fuel-efficient models are out there, we just need to sell more,” she said. “We are trying very hard.”
Ah, yes, the automakers are trying. Very trying.
Frank
So the REALLY bad news is that even though fuel economy has remained flat, the market share of SUVs has increased dramatically. Pickup sales are flat and car sales have decreased (as a percentage of total sales):http://www.epa.gov/otaq/cert/mpg/fetrends/420s06003.htmIsn't this more important than the average fuel economy per manufacturer? Even if fleet-wide fuel economy skyrocketed, it wouldn’t matter much if people were still choosing the least efficient vehicles in the lot. Believe it or not, the price of gas is still not high enough to truly affect behavior, it seems. Maybe that will change in the future.Of course, we could fix this if the EPA mandated seriously high CAFE standards.
kbris10224
The EPA findings are more indicative of consumer preference, not automaker performance. Fuel efficient vehicles have been available for decades, but most consumers opt for utility, style, and how they feel driving their car of choice. Remember the Geo vehicles? The Metro achieved ~50mpg but sales were dismal. Minivans get better fuel economy than SUVs, but you probably couldn’t pay some people to buy a minivan because of the image as a “soccer mom.” The cars that people drool over are usually about power, ride and handling.When I pick up my daughter at school, the line is filled with SUVs and large sedans. Its all supply and demand.