NEW YORK—Facing federal mandates to increase fuel economy in future vehicles, car companies have shown their ability to slowly increase their corporate average fuel economy (CAFE), a measure of fuel economy across a company’s product line.
South Korea’s Hyundai released its sales-weighted CAFE ratings and its average window-label fuel economy results. Hyundai reported CAFE of 36.5 miles per gallon (mpg) and window-label fuel efficiency of 27.6 mpg. CAFE displays the fuel economy that does not take into account actual driving conditions and are usually utilized for federal standards. Window-label fuel economy reports a more realistic number to show what drivers will actually experience.
TrueCar.com, a service that monitors car pricing, trends, and forecasts confirmed fuel economy numbers from light car sales that reveal fuel economy having increased to 22.0 mpg in September 2011 from 21.4 mpg last year by measure of TrueMPG.
“Hyundai and Nissan were the biggest gainers in average fuel economy gains this month,” said Jesse Toprak, vice president of Industry Trends and Insights at TrueCar.com.
TrueMPG reported U.S. fuel economy increasing to 20.2 mpg in September 2011 from 20.0 mpg in September 2010. European vehicles sold improved from 21.1 mpg to 21.9 mpg; Japanese manufacturers saw their average fuel economy climb from last year’s 23.2 mpg to 23.5 mpg; and South Korean manufacturers decreased their average fuel economy for vehicles from 25.7 mpg to 26.7 mpg.
TrueMPG analyzes monthly fuel economy averages by brand, manufacturer, origin, and vehicle segments. In order to calculate those numbers, TrueMPG sources their results from “Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ratings based on estimated and/or actual monthly automotive sales-weighted data.”
It also processes economy data such as engine size and drivetrain in relation to sales share of each model to produce an average for each model. Company data is comprised of sales share of each model and the manufacturer data compared to the whole share of each brand, which is the precise numbers of the mpg in the auto industry.
President Obama states the government and most automakers agreed to raise fleetwide fuel economy averages to 54.5 MPG by 2025. In a recent report, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration head David Strickland said that the mandate is currently in the public comment phase and no legislation has been implemented.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is one of the lawmakers against the new proposal, saying that the measure would force automakers to create smaller vehicles, and thus decreasing the safety of future cars.
