Honda Hybrid lady loses on appeal

Curmudgeon wrote: More to the point (at least IMHO) is how those numbers are arrived at. From the EPA web site: http://www.epa.gov/fueleconomy/data.htm *The test data used to determine the fuel economy estimates posted on the fuel economy labels and to calculate a manufacturer's corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) is derived from vehicle testing done at EPA's National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and by vehicle manufacturers who submit their own test data to EPA.* So it seems to be a hybrid sort of system. The EPA does some testing and the mfgs do some then they supply that data to the EPA. About that: since CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) needs to be over a certain level which Congress keeps changing, it's in the mfgs best interest to get the numbers as high as possible. Otherwise they get fined. I would venture to say that if a mfg purposely inflated the numbers and got caught there would be a really big stanky, the PR by itself would probably kill at least 20% of sales for a while. So it would not be in Honda's best interests to inflate the numbers in the first place.

Not that it matters, but...

The cars are not always tested at the EPA labs, as a number of the OEM's do all of the testing and reporting to the EPA themselves. Called Self Cert. There is considerable work to maintain a very high level of standards in terms of the testing, and for many of the sites, the OEM sites are better than EPA's. Anyway, testing can be done at the EPA or at approved OEM's. So the line in your text should say "AND/OR" as opposed to "and". Why this shows up on the EPA site listed like that is beyond me. Like you say, the fines are harsh enough to prevent cheating (many of the fines are actually personal, so if the threat of jail were to scare you..).

Second, right now, there are two ways to do the fuel economy calculation, but the system is phasing toward the latter. First, the testing is the standard 75 and highway tests, and then a correction is applied to that. Normally, the OEM will also check those numbers with the rest of the testing required, but it's a little easier with the basic fuel economy tests. Second is what is coming- it's a combination of the standard 75 + highway test, a high speed-ish test (called a US06), an A/C test (SC03), and a cooler test (50F). All of the "new" tests are required for both EPA and CARB emissions cert, so it's not an extra burden on certification.

Where it all got funny, and resulted in the new testing is that hybrids gave some really odd answers. really odd. And then when a few higher ups who matter got themselves hybrids and the resulting numbers were nowhere near real life economy- then a strong re-look at how the numbers come about happened.

just details and some background.

Otto Maddox wrote: In reply to Curmudgeon: Honda offered to test her car. She refused unless she could videotape, monitor the process, etc. Maybe she was trying to protect herself. Maybe she was trying to make it an untenable situation for Honda.

Hell, if I was Honda I'd have said tape away but we want a copy. I'm thinking untenable situation.

I mentioned run it through the EPA cycle under EPA's guidance and with their people as a disinterested third party, they'd not care which way it went. That would be an objective test.

From my limited knowledge of hybrids, they are supposed to actually get better short hop around town mileage than they do highway mileage.

In reply to alfadriver:

Hmm. That's interesting. If some high muckety mucks saw a big discrepancy in their real world figures vs. the advertised test figures, then maybe her real beef is, as I mentioned earlier, with the EPA and not Honda.

Curmudgeon wrote: In reply to alfadriver: Hmm. That's interesting. If some high muckety mucks saw a big discrepancy in their real world figures vs. the advertised test figures, then maybe her real beef is, as I mentioned earlier, with the EPA and not Honda.

Yea, sort of. How the fuel economy was calculated did change, not the OEM of the Hybrid she owned. That's why there's been an adjustment in how FE has been calculated.

My personal editorial- if a company is going to heavily rely on a number to advertise their product, then depending on how they use the number in advertising, there should be an expectation of delivering that. In this case, IF Honda leaned heavily on that number, and didn't "range" it properly, then I think a customer does have an expectation of performance. If they are using it to sell the cars, and people are buying it with that expectation, and it's not being met in a reasonable matter, there is a place for a complaint. Having said that, I don't know the details.

Wasn't her car a hy-brid ? Insight maybe. The mileage could really vary depending on how driven.

alfadriver wrote:

Curmudgeon wrote: In reply to alfadriver: Hmm. That's interesting. If some high muckety mucks saw a big discrepancy in their real world figures vs. the advertised test figures, then maybe her real beef is, as I mentioned earlier, with the EPA and not Honda.

Yea, sort of. How the fuel economy was calculated did change, not the OEM of the Hybrid she owned. That's why there's been an adjustment in how FE has been calculated. My personal editorial- if a company is going to heavily rely on a number to advertise their product, then depending on how they use the number in advertising, there should be an expectation of delivering that. In this case, IF Honda leaned heavily on that number, and didn't "range" it properly, then I think a customer does have an expectation of performance. If they are using it to sell the cars, and people are buying it with that expectation, and it's not being met in a reasonable matter, there is a place for a complaint. Having said that, I don't know the details.

I get that. At the same time, if the current test did show those numbers (and I am pretty sure Honda would not try to fudge something like that, as conservative as they are) and they used them, then I don't see an intent to mislead. It would be more like Mazda's RX8 horsepower rating recall which (IIRC) was based mostly in a change of how it was calculated than any sort of intentional misrepresentation. Ford had the same HP issue with Cobras, too.