Filed under: MPG, Hyundai, Kia, AutoblogGreen Exclusive, Legislation and Policy, USA


Last week, Hyundai and Kia announced that they had each made errors in the way they tested the fuel economy of their new vehicles. "Honest mistakes" and "human error" were made during their in-house process for determining fuel economy figures that overestimated the rate at which vehicles like the Veloster and Elantra burn fuel. While most models were off by one or two MPGs, highway numbers for the Kia Soul were revised down by six MPGs in one instance.

At this point, you might be saying, wait, automakers get to test their own vehicles? Doesn't the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) do that?

Actually, no.

Most new cars and trucks in the US never see the inside of the EPA's National Vehicles and Fuel Emissions Laboratory in Ann Arbor, MI. Instead, they are tested by the manufacturers themselves, which often use pre-production prototypes in "a standardized test procedure specified by federal law," and then report those numbers to the EPA. Only 10-to-15 percent of all new models, or about 150 to 200 vehicles per year, are re-tested by the EPA to verify the automakers' numbers. Keep reading below for the full story.Continue reading How the EPA tests - and doesn't test - fuel economy of new vehicles

How the EPA tests - and doesn't test - fuel economy of new vehicles originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Mon, 05 Nov 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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