[Fat Charlie]

Car companies are very good at designing and manufacturing things. They can build wonderful slushboxes that excel at being operated for the EPA testing. I don't work as an EPA test driver, so I use EPA ratings the same way I use 0-60 times: as a largely irrelevant number that only serves to give an idea of relative performance to other cars being operated exactly the same way under identical circumstances.

In real life if you can and care enough to do more than simply shift into Dumb, there's no comparing the two. An auto doesn't know what's going on outside the car or what you're trying to do.