http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/7640.shtml

I get about 26 city, and maybe 29 highway (hardly ever do highway driving).

So that puts my actual city mileage about 37 percent higher than the EPA estimate.

Kyoto is one month old, and we’re no closer to figuring out a masterplan to solve the world’s ginormous energy problems – not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, at this point. With all the…

I’ve owned four of these (1979 Firebird Trans Am, 1985 Porsche 928, 1997 Mitsubishi 3000GT and 2002 Porsche 996) and not one failed to deliver more than 20% higher mileage than the EPA estimates. They have vastly different engine designs with but one thing in common…they were tuned for power. This never bothered the government or environmentalists since in their definition these cars are “bad”, but now they’re worried since “good” cars are not getting the gas mileage they trumpeted in an effort to make the rest of us feel guilty about not driving hybrid or electric vehicles.

The Federal Test Procedures (FTP) for Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards can be found at http://www.epa.gov/otaq/stds-ld.htm. They are complicated. Because these tests have serious financial consequences, manufacturers can be expected to try very hard to get the highest numbers they can. Like high school students trying to game the SAT, this may mean pushing the allowed environmental and engineering limits and looking for loopholes. No one who has slowed down in deference to a known speed trap should be the least bit surprised..

The purpose of the FTP is not to inform consumers about gas mileage. Consumers have plenty of reliable information readily available from Consumers Union and many others, including automotive magazines. (Consumers cannot, however, obtain reliable information from manufacturers, who are prohibited from advertising anything other than the results of the Federal Test Procedure.)

The clear purpose of the bill is to increase average fuel economy without having to budge Congress from its annual refusal to permit CAFÉ to be increased. If we stipulate the alleged fact (“the FTP yields values 30% higher than actual mileage”), then changes to the FTP that would eliminate this bias have the indirect effect of making fuel economy standards 30% more stringent. Of course, if the actual bias is smaller the 30% figure provides a convenient basis for advocates of higher CAFÉ standards to object to any changes in the FTP that would achieve lesser increases in effective stringency.

This is entirely consistent with the policy objectives of at least two of the three stakeholders said to be supporting Rep. Johnson’s bill. Both the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/cars_and_suvs/page.cfm?pageID=221. and the Sierra Club http://www.sierraclub.org/globalwarming/cleancars/cafe/index.asp. are environmental activist groups that have long supported major increases in fuel economy standards, yet neither has a significant reputation for involvement in consumer protection matters. Still, majorities within these organizations quite likely agree with the policy position their leaders are taking.

But the American Automobile Association’s support is more difficult to explain. A press release that offers little insight is at http://www.aaanewsroom.net/Articles.asp?ArticleID=357&CategoryID=4&SectionID=1&. It goes without saying that only a handful of AAA’s 47 million reported members were actually consulted. That handful may represent the sum total of drivers who belong to AAA for political advocacy rather than discounts, Tour Books and emergency road service.

Clearly, any regulatory battle that could increase CAFÉ by 30% would be deeply contentious and bitterly adversarial. Rep. Johnson’s bill is thus an extremely clever tactic to secure what Congress has persistently refused to do transparently. Legislation is not needed to assure that consumers obtain reliable fuel economy information from nongovernmental sources. If there is a genuine problem of consumer misunderstanding, it arises because the government requires FTP results to be emblazoned on every window sticker and included in every automotive advertisement in which fuel economy is touted as a vehicle attribute.

A final irony: Consumers can achieve 30% increases in fuel economy just by slowing down. But we don’t. As much as we complain about the price of gasoline, we complain a lot more when congestion slows the flow of traffic to the #%&*! speed limit.