Which EPA to use?

[tumnasgt]

My family's new (to us) Hyundai Sonata is rated for 9l/100km with the EU standards, and 9.8l/100km (25MPG) with EPA. My mom generally gets around 9.5-11l/100km, and I would say that she drives kinder than most 'normal' people. With this car being my first hands on experience with the European ratings, I was rather shocked at how stupidly low the consumption numbers are.

In the old Camry, we would get about 9-9.5l/100km, with the EPA rating being the same 9.8l/100km as the Sonata. I suspect a lot of the difference is that we do quite a bit of city driving, and the Camry's manual transmission has the benefit of no torque converter, and engine braking. Now that I'm the only one driving the Camry, it's had two tanks of <7.1l/100km

[PaleMelanesian]

Originally Posted by euromodder

I doubt it.
Few people do better than the official FE values for their cars, regardless of wether they use diesel or petrol engines.

That seems odd to me. In my limited personal experience (4 vehicles I/we have owned), all it takes to match or beat the old epa rating is not driving like an idiot.

Example: my civic, rated 38 mpg highway (old epa). If I set the cruise control at 65 mph (105 km/h), it'll do 42-44 mpg. Using AC might bring it down to 40, which is still better than the rating.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by PaleMelanesian

That seems odd to me. In my limited personal experience (4 vehicles I/we have owned), all it takes to match or beat the old epa rating is not driving like an idiot.

That won't be sufficient to match the European rated fuel consumption.

Before joining ecomodder.com, I only managed to stay below the official rating twice in 181 fuelings.
Yet I was already driving 10-15 kph below the speed limit on motorways (120 kph posted); doing the limit elsewhere (mostly 70 kph / 43 mph) doing a lot of DFCO-braking; using LRR tyres; keeping fuel records; eco-parking; ...
It just wasn't enough to beat the official numbers

[320touring]

Originally Posted by euromodder

That won't be sufficient to match the European rated fuel consumption.

Before joining ecomodder.com, I only managed to stay below the official rating twice in 181 fuelings.
Yet I was already driving 10-15 kph below the speed limit on motorways (120 kph posted); doing the limit elsewhere (mostly 70 kph / 43 mph) doing a lot of DFCO-braking; using LRR tyres; keeping fuel records; eco-parking; ...
It just wasn't enough to beat the official numbers

i've managed 36.2 uk mpg in the saab, despite a fuel leak:-(

I reckon i could do 40uk mpg if it didnt leak out about a gallon from the filler neck..

Certainly it aint easy-i'm hypermiling my butt off here:-)

[PaleMelanesian]

There's clearly something not connecting here.

[PaleMelanesian]

Hmmm... maybe the Prius is the odd one out.

2009 Honda Civic manual 1.8L iVTEC
US new epa: 26 city / 34 hwy / 29 combined
US old epa: 30 city / 38 hwy / 33 combined
NEDC: 27 city / 43 hwy / 35 combined

It looks like the NEDC rates the cars better on the highway. I can see how that would be tough to match or beat.

city NEDC -> New EPA = multiply mpg by 0.96 (civic) or 0.86 (prius)
hwy NEDC -> New epa = multiply mpg by 0.79 (civic) or 0.77 (prius)

I think I'm thoroughly confused. Basically, there isn't an easy translation between the ratings, because different cars perform differently on the various tests.