15 ms·
If you read the full report, the automaker with by far the largest gap between its claimed improvements in fuel economy and its actual on-the-road performance i
by Bud 11y ago
If you read the full report, the automaker with by far the largest gap between its claimed improvements in fuel economy and its actual on-the-road performance is General Motors. Much worse than VW and Mercedes (who also did very poorly), by this measure.
A reckoning is coming.
source: see page 13, here
http://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/publications/TE_Mind_the_Gap_2015_FINAL.pdf http://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/publicati...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- crazypyro 11y ago"3. Deducting 4% from measured results Bizarrely the NEDC procedure allows carmakers to actually declare (use) a value 4% lower than the one measured. The provision is designed to minimize the testing burden but is being abused by carmakers to declare lower test results systematically." I wonder if there is a person that didn't expect this to happen.
- Someone1234 11y agoDoes it matter however when it is systematic? This is going to sound backwards, but consider this: People buy cars based in part on MpG, however MpG is within itself an abstract thing (i.e. you don't actually get X miles per gallon, never did, never will too many other factors to include). So if everyone removes 4% from an abstract number, the entire market has shifted down, but the relative difference between two models remains identical (e.g. if one car has 21 MpG and another has 25 MpG, even with 4% removed from both they retain their relative position). If some were removing 4% while others weren't, that would legitimately be a problem. If they're all removing 4% then we're essentially where we would be at the start just with lower abstract numbers.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago>you don't actually get X miles per gallon, never did, never will too many other factors to include This wouldn't be hard to fix. Loan cars to a random selection of non-professional beta drivers. Graph the results, showing the median and sd. It would be cheaper to do this than to get hit by a class action for misleading buyers. Of course reality-based non-expert mpg would look very bad compared to the dishonest figures you get now. But that's because of manufacturing and design decision, and not really the fault of the drivers.
- sgc 11y agoIt does because emission regulations are not there for comparison purposes alone. We need to reduce emissions to a certain level, and the environment won't be fooled. This is similar to the way unemployment is now calculated based on active job seekers rather than people who are, well, unemployed.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoThe order/position may stay the same in your scheme, but the values do not retain their proportions relative to each other. Presumably not everyone cheated the same, as well.
- debacle 11y agoIt definitely does in 2015 when you are comparing against cars that don't have an MPG.
- schwabacher 11y agoI can think of three reasons that it matters: - We base regulations and taxes on absolute MpG, so overstating efficiency weakens the regulations and allows automakers to cheat on taxes. - It misleads consumers about the cost to operate the vehicle. - It is an issue when comparing efficiency of new cars to older cars produced before the systemic cheating.
- rtkwe 11y agoIn the US the EPA confirms the MPG ratings for 10%-15% of vehicles and has prescribed (edit: prescribed vs proscribed) testing regimes for each of the estimates. The issue isn't with manufacturers lying so much as the test schedule laid out by the EPA just doesn't reflect how people drive.
- dragonwriter 11y agoNitpick, but "prescribed"; is pretty much the opposite of "proscribed".
- rtkwe 11y agoWhoops. Serves me right for writing comments 3 words at a time between Sametime pings...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- happyscrappy 11y agoFrom the third paragraph of your article: >Mercedes cars have the biggest average gap between test and real-world performance, with real-world fuel consumption exceeding test results by nearly half.
- Bud 11y agoYes, your facts are valid too, but that's a different comparison than the one I am citing. Read my comment word-for-word and you will see the difference.
- happyscrappy 11y agoGM claimed less improvement(aka cheated less), so your comment is wrong. Edit: Apparently I am wrong.
- Bud 11y agoIt's not my comment. It's data presented in the report. My comment is taken directly from the chart I cited. So if you want to quarrel with it, you need to quarrel with those who compiled the data, I suppose. You first misread my comment, and now you're misreading the chart, apparently, so let me explain: the chart I cited shows the percentage of claimed improvement in fuel economy which was actually delivered in real-world driving. This is precisely what my comment said. Edit: I think your confusion might lie in the math that you think is being done, perhaps? The chart is showing the DIFFERENCE between two numbers. It's not based on just the claimed improvement. It's the actual improvement divided by the claim. GM made a claim of improvement and their performance actually went down, so their number is around -38%. Daimler was the next-worst at around 16%.
- happyscrappy 11y agoHmm. I think you are right, the caption and graphic conflict a bit.
- mattlutze 11y agoThe 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.
- Bud 11y agoProbably not sufficient for legal action, since as you noted, the data is user-reported. Probably sufficient to provoke more rigorous testing, though.
- vkjv 11y agoI 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.
- Zelphyr 11y agoCare to share some of those tips?
- nathancahill 11y agoAccelerate gradually, stay off the brakes.
- kwelstr 11y agoAnd when in the highway don't go too fast, speed increases drag etc. etc.
- lucaspiller 11y agoI did some tests on a long drive last week, for the Smart Forfour I had this was the fuel consumption. It was all along flat, straight parts of the highway. Reports were based upon the cars own fuel efficiency monitor. - 135 km/h 7.8l/100km (30 mpg) - 125 km/h 6.5l/100km (36 mpg) - 115 km/h 5.4l/100km (43 mpg) I never realised speed made such a difference! (Mpg is US gallons)
- eveningcoffee 11y agoIf you read carefully then the report actually does not provide any data about fuel economy. While they speak about fuel consumption and even speculate with numbers, this is not backed up by the data. Report contains only data about CO2 emissions.
- marze 11y agoUh, it is the same. Fixed amount of carbon in a gallon of fuel, all will be emitted.
- eveningcoffee 11y agoIf you assume perfect burning then all carbon burned will turn into CO2. Therefore more CO2 may actually mean more efficient burning and smaller fuel usage (for the same amount of power i.e. less CO, less other particulate matter). This could happen for example when the engine could not take enough air to burn efficiently (for example because it is stationary). Unless we have also fuel consumption we could not know which case we are dealing with when we only see CO2 emissions. For example when the test only measures (and prioritises) CO2 emissions, injection software may decide to use more fuel in inefficient manner to reduce the CO2 emission and then use exhaust filter to capture the extra particulate matter. Well, it is only a wild speculation, but it could be.
- marze 11y agoUh, so you think an appreciable amount of carbon is going out another way? Like carbon monoxide? Or unburned hydrocarbons? Neither compares to CO2, as a fraction. You are simply wrong. CO2 emission is proportional fuel consumed.
- eveningcoffee 11y agoYes, I understand. The problem is that the report authors do not explain their methodology and interchange freely fuel consumption and CO2 emissions without clear explanation (did they measure CO2 emissions directly? did they calculate it from fuel consumption?). This is not proper reporting in my mind. Beside they base their reporting on self reported (i.e. not automatically measured) data from http://www.spritmonitor.de/ http://www.spritmonitor.de/ that does not provide any objective information about the driving cycle. See for example these two entries for BMW 3er 320d touring efficient dynamic 1) http://www.spritmonitor.de/en/detail/595885.html?cdetail=1 http://www.spritmonitor.de/en/detail/595885.html?cdetail=1 (2012, 120 kW, 4,14 l/100km) 2) http://www.spritmonitor.de/en/detail/672858.html?cdetail=1 http://www.spritmonitor.de/en/detail/672858.html?cdetail=1 (2011, 120 kW, 5,54 l/100km) It is about 34% difference. Why? No idea. Well, maybe the first driver drove very carefully. Maybe the other car is broken or the driver likes to accelerate a lot or is driving on the hilly terrain. It is also not known how many kilometers were driven on the city roads or highway as they are hard to separate in the data. We also do not know which driving mode (eco, normal, sport etc) was used as it is not reported. Car makers report different fuel consumption or CO2 profiles. Against which was comparison completed? I think that this is sensationalist reporting with an agenda that is not well executed.
- on_ 11y agoWow. I thought about shorting GM, after the VW thing broke. I figured they would have the highest incentive to cheat and everyone is about to get caught.
- debacle 11y agoUS regulatory bodies have no teeth and we've already propped up GM once. The only reckoning that's coming is going to be another round of market jiggling, or maybe an unrecoverable failure.
- JustSomeNobody 11y agoAssuming wrongdoing: GM will get another pass because it is "too big to fail." This has to stop. Execs need to start going to prison.
- JonFish85 11y agoYou're also assuming that execs necessarily knew about everything. There's a reasonable chance that the execs set the targets and feed it to the middle managers who pass it along to teams. Somewhere along the line I imagine there are those who are terrified of missing those targets and perhaps losing their jobs and resort to bending the rules a bit to hit their goals. And there's a very good chance that these people aren't at the top. The same was most likely true in the subprime mortgages--I imagine that some of the worst actors in that weren't necessarily the people at the top, it was the guy who is decidedly mid-level who is looking to make a nice bonus to put in a swimming pool for his kids. And to figure it all out is going to take years and years of investigations to assign blame (whether in this case or in the subprime case). By the time it's sorted out, it could be a decade after the fact, and even then people have moved on to other jobs, records are difficult to dig up, and at the end of the day, what has been accomplished? Of course if there is blatant wrong-doing, execs should absolutely be punished (the peanut company CEO comes to mind [1]). But it's extremely difficult to pin down blame on any one person, exec or not. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/22/us-usa-georgia-salmonella-idUSKCN0RL24H20150922 http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/22/us-usa-georgia-sal...
- Karunamon 11y agoThe execs get all the credit when it goes right, they should get all the blame when it goes wrong. Lock a couple of these people up, and suddenly they'll start caring a lot more about the legality of what their underlings are doing...
- kbenson 11y agoYou can't just lock up the execs without evidence, that's unjust. You can't just investigate, the nature of large power structures is that some underling will take the fall. Breaking the rules for economic advantage should be met with new rules to force economic disadvantage. Put a 2% tax on total revenue for the next X years, possibly with the addition of a fee based on perceived past benefit. Honest players in the market will reap the lower cost of doing business, and better business practices will prevail.