For those who haven't seen this yet, Honda was sued in 2007 in the US by two Civic Hybrid owners who weren't getting the mileage their cars were advertised to get:
- 49 city / 51 highway (by the old, pre-2008 ratings method)
They were getting 31 mpg.
Honda has reportedly settled the lawsuit, and has agreed to take a number of actions as a result of it, including:
- rebates to dissatisfied owners on other (non-hybrid) new / used Hondas
- sending "eco-driver's ed" DVD's to all Honda hybrid owners
- changing their advertising from "mileage may vary" to "mileage will vary"
See this article for more info:
Civic Hybrid Mileage Brouhaha Continues | Hybrid Cars
What a mess!
It would have been interesting to know
exactly what those two owners were doing to get such crappy mileage from their cars (or if it was in fact their fault).
The case does raise some interesting issues, eg. the implications of marketing vehicles based on fuel economy.
I know one hybrid owner who has never been happy with his car because he never gets the advertised numbers. Now, he's probably never gotten the advertised numbers in ANY car he's owned, but he never bought those cars with fuel economy in mind. And none of them had MPG displays in the middle of the dashboard to show him how badly they were doing.