This is an interesting article on cars not meeting the EPA estimates. Talks about non- hybrid as well as hybrids..

http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/02/pf/autos/epa/index.htm

Hi Peggy:

___Thanks for the link. I cannot wait for the EPA to come up with real world testing scenario.

___If you haven’t read Consumer Reports in a while, there fuel economy testing does include a real test track with an exacting number of stops for the exact amount of time and acceleration to a particular speed between the lights etc. They also have a highway test track IIRC for a more realistic highway number. After all that, they also use a 150 mile highway test on a real highway with real cars. It is a very interesting and exacting scenario to say the least. How they hold temperature across the range of cars on a given day/week/month is beyond me however?

___Good Luck

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Hunt Club Farms Landscaping Ltd.
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

Wayne,
They may do group testing....especially for the highway. Like you said, the highway needs to have other cars, so that would give them the other cars.
Cheers,
Steven

Yeah, to be fair the tests need to be indoors in a controled climate, adding airconditioning use makes indoor tests all the more important. Outside you have temp, and wind and traffic which change from day to day. What they need to do is increase the speed of the highway test to reflect current speed limits. They also need find a way to make sure hybrid batts are not used to cheat buy running the car in pure EV mode. This would be quite a trick as I'm not sure how you could ensure a batt pack has the same charge at the end of testing as it did in the beginning.

I think the only way to accurately measure would be to increase the length of the test. That way, if hybirds' batteries drain it will effect the results.