Quote:
Originally Posted by Hersbird
The lower speeds make the size and aerodynamics meaningless at least. My sweet spot is around 35 mph as the forester has low gears and bad aerodynamics. Just fast enough to idle around in 5th gear.
I've been to Perth which seemed to me exactly like any US city, that was back in 1998 so maybe they haven't kept pace with growth but back then the roads seemed pretty easy.
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Size = Weight. I'd argue that engine size is more meaningless (bigger engine = shorter pulse - within reason). Besides at ~30mph aero drag is already at 50% of total drag, far from meaningless.
My point isn't really about my city vs 'your' city etc. It's about how beating the EPA figures really isn't an achievement. Avg speeds are a decent way to compare traffic density but they're rarely posted. When ever I post economy numbers on other sites I get excuses - one guy told me that in London he sometimes averages 10mph, well that's why I do in peak hour - I was a bit surprised London isn't worse. There's a point at which people just give up on driving - most cities reached 'peak traffic' in the 90's.
I possibly do have the worst 1.6 on this site (edit: had to check - I don't
), but it's no doubt one of the best (up to) 5000lbs vehicles was well (tested CD at 0.45), and beating the NEDC which most cars on here with hypermiler status don't. Even with 5000lbs I'm matching/ beating the EPA of things like late model Focus and Civic. Is the EPA too easy to match/ beat?
But then I look at my poor little UFI struggling to match NEDC combined, yet he's still in 26th on this site. In fact he's the only car in the top 50 with a negative in front of his 'EPA' (NEDC) figure. As a point of referance the second best Fiat 500 on here is a US 1.4, running 44MPG which is 34% over EPA, while my 48MPG is -20%.
I just wonder if having an agreed multilpier for NEDC rated cars would help spur interest from more Europeans, or at least NEDC on the labels on the garage and signature tags.