The Challenges of EPA Fuel Economy Testing: A Closer Look at the Process

On the road, the EPA's fuel economy test is a rigorous process that involves certain parameters to follow. One of the key elements of this test is the use of a dynamometer, which provides a controlled environment for measuring the car's performance. The driver behind the wheel must precisely follow a red line of speed against time, displayed on a monitor hanging directly in front of the windshield. This requires a high degree of accuracy and attention to detail, as any deviation from the test cycle by more than two miles per hour results in the results not being counted and the test having to start over.

The process of testing is complex and involves numerous documents that explain each procedure and circumstance in detail, with their own set of rules. Even the process of rounding off fuel economy test results, which are published on a new car sticker label, is subject to strict guidelines. The EPA's goal is to provide the most accurate miles per gallon rating possible.

The EPA's estimated average fuel economy is based on three key elements: city driving, highway driving, and combined mileage. In this report, the EPA assumes that motorists drive 55% of the time in the city and 45% of the time on the highway. This is the benchmark they use, but it's worth noting that in reality, most people spend more time driving in city traffic than highway driving.

However, the real-world scenario is far from ideal. If you live in a large city, you're likely to spend more time in city traffic, which can significantly reduce fuel efficiency. The EPA recognizes this challenge and takes it into account when calculating fuel economy figures. For example, if your average speed on the highway is 10 miles per hour, the test is no longer considered highway driving.

The process of assessing actual fuel economy compared to EPA ratings is also complex. Studies have shown that six factors can significantly impact the car's real-world fuel efficiency: the amount of city driving, driving style, use of an air conditioner, size of the car, region and climate, and carrying heavy loads or passengers. For example, driving with frequent starts and stops in city traffic can reduce EPA combined highway fuel efficiency by as much as 27%. Driving aggressively can also have a significant impact on fuel efficiency, reducing it by up to 18%.

Furthermore, studies have shown that the type of fuel used can also affect fuel economy. The EPA conducts tests using 100 gasoline in the tank, but most U.S. gasoline contains 8-10% ethanol. This ethanol increases the amount of oxygen in the gasoline and provides better fuel combustion, but it alone can reduce fuel efficiency by about 2%. When combined with other factors, such as aggressive driving or city traffic, the impact on fuel economy can add up.

Another factor that affects EPA ratings is regional climate and geography. Environments with hot weather and mountainous conditions can reduce fuel efficiency by as much as 12%. Carrying heavy loads or passengers can also significantly impact fuel economy, making it difficult to achieve the EPA's estimated average mileage.

In conclusion, the EPA's fuel economy test is a complex process that takes into account numerous factors to provide an accurate estimate of a car's real-world fuel efficiency. However, the challenges of testing are significant, and actual fuel economy may differ from EPA ratings due to various factors such as driving style, region, climate, and carrying heavy loads or passengers. By understanding these complexities, drivers can make informed decisions about their vehicle and adjust their driving habits accordingly.

The role of automakers in providing accurate fuel economy figures is also crucial. While the EPA provides a benchmark, most automakers conduct their own testing using the agency's protocols but ultimately provide the final fuel efficiency figures themselves. This means that drivers may find significant discrepancies between the EPA rating and the actual fuel efficiency of their vehicle.

As a result, it's essential to understand the nuances of fuel economy testing and how they impact real-world driving habits. By being aware of these factors, drivers can adjust their behavior to achieve better fuel efficiency and make informed decisions about their vehicle.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyou notice how high gas prices are these days the regular gas retail price is averaging about 321 right now that's one dollar more per gallon than a year ago in fact this is a seven year high in the united states this is mainly because the price of brent crude oil have been an all-time high since 2014. this september it averaged 74.00 compare that to last september which was 34. so you can see it more than doubled and the current high price probably won't be the limit and us believe it'll average eighty one dollars for the rest of the year but it's not impossible to see crude oil prices reach a hundred dollar a barrel in the near future actually the market is actively buying options for a hundred dollars a barrel for 2022 and some buyers are shelling out 200 per barrel for this december overall experts believe this trend is due to low production supply disruption and increased demand but there's yet another reason it's happening behind the scenes let's talk about low production simply put right now not much oil is being produced in the world many dot production will be restored next year to the pre-pandemic level at the same time we have a global energy crisis with a sharp rise in gas and coal prices as energy demands grow the low production won't be able to meet the demand which means prices continue to rise so how did this happen in the spring of 2020 oil prices plummeted due to the pandemic remember airplanes were grounded cities were under locked down and there was enormous drop in fuel demand that's why the oil supply at that time was 20 percent higher than the demand needless to say members of opec agreed to reduce their oil production by a record amount almost 10 million barrels per day which is about 10 of world production this was the opec plus deal the u.s and other countries that aren't normally part of opec also cut production so all in all this meant a reduction of some 15 million barrels per day or more than 15 percent of the world's oil production prices quickly rose to 40 to 45 dollars per barrel exporters suffered huge losses even at relatively high prices that's because the cut in production cost them tens of billions of dollars the first tough pandemic lockdowns helped the global economy to start recovering so exporters started to increase production again they were cautious they didn't want to restore production fully or too quickly otherwise that would bring a drop in price the pandemic is still ongoing and if any country with a large economy let's say china for example would reinforce yet another new lockdown that would mean demand will plummet again so you can see how the situation has been quite volatile initially analysts thought that even a slow increase production by the opec members would make supply exceed demand for january 2022. and therefore lead to a drop in prices they believed this because u.s companies increased offshore oil production to pre-pandemic levels a few months ago before the pandemic the u.s production level led to an oil surplus on the world market but this initial forecast of an excess of supply turned out to be wrong this summer it became clear that a huge additional demand for oil could emerge in a world in the upcoming months for the first time in decades the price of natural gas in europe and asia exceeded the price of oil in terms of energy release so that's why analysts believe they'll see significant increase in oil demand from 750 000 to 2 million barrels per day this summer it also became evident that most of the opec plus members couldn't increase production even to the quotas that they'd agreed upon at the same time oil demand was growing much faster than previously forecasted in september 2021 the opec plus members increased production faster than they initially agreed to but they still couldn't keep up with the demand only russia and iraq are producing more oil than their quarters allowed the problem is many of the oil exporting countries don't have enough investment to return to previous production levels opec leadership denies this of course some people speculate that maybe they're just not reinvesting in oil production at pre-epidemic levels since the global economy is transitioning to green energy they point to the fact that even the largest private oil companies in the world have been investing in renewable energy in addition to future oil expansion recently british petroleum has been gambling big on a fast transition from oil to renewables that's because all major oil players are facing lots of pressure from government regulators and investors to develop cleaner energy and divest from fossil fuels since it's the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming so bp has been gambling to transition faster than its peers bp proposed to cut oil production by 40 or about a million barrels a day that's equal to the united kingdom's entire daily output in 2019 in addition bp is boosting capacity to generate electricity from renewable resources equivalent to the power made by 50 us nuclear plants going back to rising gasoline prices some people speculate that some oil exporting countries aren't quick to return the previous investment level in new oil production projects because of green energy they say the current oil situation is an opportunity to transition more quickly to green energy and abandon oil but unfortunately it's not all that simple the chief planner of the international energy agency which is responsible for green energy transition said that the transition could become quite messy the iea's new version of the energy transition plan shows a noble yet ambitious goal to achieve zero greenhouse gas by 2050. this will limit climate change to 2.7 degrees fahrenheit they believe that only the speed of transition will allow avoiding catastrophic consequences for the climate population and economy let's talk about electrification a few years ago stanford economists projected that evs will kill the global oil industry by 2030. if the world economy really starts abandoning fossil fuels at the speed that politicians are planting then some people think we'll reach the peak of oil consumption sooner than later which after that point oil demand will only go down would it surprise you to hear that gas giants bp and shell acquired ev charging companies they bought them with chump chains to diversify their holdings but it just goes to show that the oil industry acknowledges the electric future but the fact is that it'll probably take a bit longer than that before the ev uptake destroys oil demand frankly evs have a way to go before it can challenge the internal combustion engine industry and subsequently the oil industry to a significant degree here's why last year light plug-in and fuel cell cars plus electric city buses and two wheelers displaced some 370 000 barrels per day expert estimate that number will grow to 1.5 million barrels per day by 2025. that's 400 percent you might think that sounds like an insanely huge number the fact is that would be just 1.4 of the world's total oil demand so it's just a tiny dent and that's why oil investors aren't losing sleep over it yet here's another interesting metric last year just 2.7 percent of cars sold their evs experts believe it'll grow to 31 by 2040. so the ev has an upward trend and its long-term outlook is bright but nevertheless it's still decades away if governments want to accelerate the ev revolution they need to create more incentives for consumers to buy evs and create more subsidies to speed up the infrastructure growth and battery innovations recently biden administration has proposed investing heavily on ev infrastructure the uk previously had plans to ban sales of gasoline and diesel cars after 2040. but last year prime minister boris johnson announced they're moving up the deadline to 2030. just consider what major car companies are doing right now general motors pledged to focus on electric cars and be fully electric by 2035. jaguar plans for their cars to be fully battery electric by 2030. land rover projects their cars to be 60 bev by that time ford announced that all their cars in europe will be eevee by 2026. this fuels a lot of hope for the ev sector every revolution every war is about chaos and that's what we're seeing advances are being made on both sides it's hard to discern what the real turning point will be and when you have people with different views and projects and the only common thing we share is just knowing the storm is brewing let's talk about how the oil and gas lobbyists are reacting so the us senate passed a budget resolution in august for a 3.5 trillion dollar budget reconciliation package but then there's the american petroleum institute and you also have the american gas association they're two of the most powerful oil and gas lobbies in america since that budget resolution api and aga have been flooding facebook with targeted ads that oppose climate initiatives api alone sent 423 000 on facebook ads and these ads have been viewed some 21 million times their average ad spend is a bit shy of 11 000 a day which of course is peanut money for that aga has been spending too they spent 18 000 on facebook ads with the goal of moving people to contact their members of congress and vote no to higher energy costs and against the energy tax whatever the case and however things turn out one thing is for sure as far as the car world's concerned evs first died out in the early 1900s it re-emerged in the 1970s only to fade out again america just wasn't ready for it 30 to 40 years ago but then it re-entered mainstream america in the 21st century and this time it's not going to fizz out and die again this time it has a foothold and it's here to stay imagine you're looking to buy a new car and your top priority is not performance but fuel economy after researching a few models you decide on a car with a high published epa rating but after a month of use and driving around town you realize you're only getting a meager 24 miles per gallon on average and you wonder what happened to the promise 30 miles per gallon on highway and 28 miles per gallon combined and you wouldn't be alone to wonder that a lot of car and truck owners have complained about the gap between the fuel efficiency they thought they'd get and what they actually get on the road this leads many to wonder where the promised fuel economy is and whether it's a deliberate deception before any car maker can put a model out on the market it must first get approval from the epa did you know that since the late 1970s the epa has certified fuel economy projections for some 450 million new cars sold in the us the fuel efficiency projections that you see on the window stickers of new cars and trucks are there by law for example you might see city miles per gallon 16 and highway amounts per gallon 25. of course when you see those numbers they're boldly displayed and appear very official that's because they're coming from the federal government which gives it a lot of credibility after all the epa figures determine whether an automaker is meeting their required average fuel economy specifications for the company's entire vehicle line so these numbers are very important they're important for us as consumers as well because fuel efficiency is high on the list of things that new car buyers want so i think this is also a matter of trust guess how many employees work for the epa and how many of them actually test cars the common view is that the federal agency is working diligently to test every new truck car van and suv model but in reality for the most part it doesn't conduct tests on its own that's because it simply doesn't have the budget equipment or manpower to test hundreds of individual models each with its own unique engine and transmission combinations surprisingly only 18 of the epa's 17 000 plus employees work in the automotive testing department which is in ann arbor michigan these 18 employees analyze roughly 200 to 250 vehicles a year and research about 15 of new models as for the remaining 85 percent the epa allows each automaker to test their own vehicles and submit their test results the agency takes the figures provided by each individual car company as factual without any further testing and they approve the numbers that we end up with seen on the window sticker and that's why we see their stamp of approval in the words assessed by the epa this is one reason why actual mileage may differ from what you see in advertisements in the window sticker is the automaker interested in making the reported miles per gallon different from the actual mileage in a way yes when a car falls into the category of gas guzzler that is below 22.5 miles per gallon or when a brand's entire lineup falls short of the government's fuel economy regulations then someone has to pay literally that's because it's the law we can thank the energy act of 1978 which introduced what many call the gas guzzler tax this tax is added to the sticker price although it does not apply to trucks so for example the smallest fine a new car buyer will pay for the low fuel economy of a particular car can be a thousand bucks that's the line applied on a mercedes benz s 550 with its 14 miles per gallon sitting at 22 miles per gallon iowa the car with the worst fuel economy is a lamborghini murcielago that gets just eight miles a gallon city 13 on the highway for a combined 10 miles per gallon for this excess the buyer pays a fine to 6400 but the maximum penalty can go up to 7 700 for a car so it's not surprising since 1983 nearly 800 million dollars in fines have been collected by the irs from new car buyers car makers also have to pay if the fuel economy figures don't meet the standards set by the corporate average fuel economy regulations these regulations were also set in 1978 and applied to the entire vehicle fleet since the 2009 model year it was officially agreed that automakers should meet an average of 27.5 miles per gallon for passenger cars and 23.1 miles per gallon for light trucks car fleets are divided into three categories domestic cars imported cars and light trucks and each individual category must meet the requirements for fuel economy if any automaker fails to reach its market it'll be fine five dollars and fifty cents times each 0.1 miles per gallon under the threshold times the number of cars sold this is why for example ferrari paid 616 bucks for each of its 1645 vehicles sold in 2008 which amounted to over a million dollars a year in fines so as you can see manufacturers also have to pay too of course to keep the industry honest the epa does spot checks each year remarkably the agency says its own test results are almost always very close to those of the automakers but what happens when the agency and the automaker's performance has different according to the rules the epa retests the vehicle to evaluate the performance of the automaker fuel economy should be within three percentage points otherwise the automaker must accept the smaller of the two sets of numbers or request another retest but there are other reasons that can explain the differences in fuel economy estimates the fact is that the real world there are so many different variables that impact fuel economy like driving conditions behaviors and so forth absolute accurate miles per gallon simply is not possible as a result in 2008 the epa updated its testing protocols taking into account that real-life driving has more stops starts accelerates and decelerates and tends to be more aggressive and faster on highway and so on so while there's a marginal difference it does seem that epa and real world average fuel economy figures are much closer than ever before so how does the epa testing lab work the epa system was modified 1984 and also in 2008 to make it more relevant even though it still doesn't precisely reflect real-world driving the epa continues to use dynamometer-based stationary laboratory tests to ensure repeatability you can think of the dynamometer or dyno as a giant treadmill for cars the vehicle is held stationary while the wheels are turning large rollers on a chassis dynamometer there are three such stands one of which is an all-wheel drive unit with sets of rollers for both front and rear wheels while the other two dynos are rotated only by the drive wheels of the car either front wheel or rear wheel once the vehicle is secured to the dyno personnel under values and figures to simulate real-world factors such as wind and friction on the road the epa fuel economy test to certain parameters to follow then one of the epa's six experienced drivers will get behind the wheel to drive the test car the driver has to precisely follow a red line of speed against time which is displayed on the monitor hanging directly in front of the windshield the driver does his best to match the red line with the car's wheel speed actually it's much more difficult than you think if the speed deviates from the test cycle by more than two miles an hour the results don't get counted and you have to start over there's a crazy high number of documents that explains each procedure and circumstance in detail each with its own set of rules even the process of rounding off fuel economy tests results that gets published on a new car sticker label is unbelievably complicated but this is what the epa does on their end to get the most accurate miles per gallon rating they can on a dynamometer a key element of the epa's estimated average fuel economy is the separation between city and highway and driving almost all cars and trucks provide better fuel economy when driving at 55 miles on an open highway as opposed to stop and go traffic on city streets when it comes to calculating the combined miles per gallon the epa assumes that motorists drive 55 of the time in the city and 45 of the time on the highway that's the benchmark they use but of course in the real world if you live in a large city you'll likely spend more time in the city than 55 even if you spend a lot of time driving on a highway it's only considered highway if your average speed is 50 miles per hour and up try doing that rush hour traffic in houston it's impossible if you hit crawl on a traffic on the highway at a speed of 10 miles an hour then your fuel consumption will be closer to city than highway so if you're diligently keeping track of the number of miles you travel based on an agency's mpg rating it'll be hard not to be disappointed you can't simply add their numbers to your own driving habits honestly assessing your particular situation is the only way to accept epa rating differences or simply change your driving style to match it then your car's odometer will more accurately reflect the fuel economy now there are six factors that studies estimate could cause the car's actual fuel economy to differ significantly from the epa rating the first factor is the amount of city driving you do driving with frequent starts and stops can reduce the epa combined obsidian highway fuel efficiency by as much as 27 second your driving style can reduce fuel efficiency by up to 18 studies show that calm drivers benefit from 35 better fuel economy than over aggressive drivers a third factor that impacts fuel economy is the use of an air conditioner turning it on continuously results in a fuel efficiency reduction of up to 14 on older cars fourth the size of your car also plays a role it can reduce mileage by up to 15 percent a fifth reason has to do with your region and climate for example environments with hot weather and mountainous conditions can reduce fuel efficiency by as much as 12 and the last thing that can cause the real mileage to differ from epa is if you're constantly carrying heavy loads or passengers so take all that into mind before you jump to the conclusion that the epa rating is completely off by the way another thing to consider is the type of fuel you're using which can affect the fuel economy for example the epa conducts a test with 100 gasoline in the tank but most u.s gasoline contains eight to ten percent ethanol this ethanol is used to increase the amount of oxygen in the gasoline and to provide better fuel combustion but it alone can reduce fuel efficiency by about two percent which might sound a little but when you couple that with some of the other factors it can all add up now imagine that if you check box for two maybe three or even more of these six factors that reduce fuel economy the next question probably is why can't the agency take these nuances into account when testing cars the short answer is that it's simply not possible it's impossible to know what percentage of drivers in which terrain will have aggressive driving patterns in order to accurately calculate this figure it's also not possible to calculate exactly where every particular vehicles are driven the most and how often the air conditioner is on and so on also remember that most of the time although automakers conduct their tests with the agency's test protocols the final fuel efficiency figures are provided by the automakers themselves and not the epa so now you tell me what do you think of the epa ratings now that you know all this and do you keep track of your miles per gallon and if you have a funnier horror story about fuel economy please share by commenting below as always if you like this video please like and subscribe to my channel thanks for your supportyou notice how high gas prices are these days the regular gas retail price is averaging about 321 right now that's one dollar more per gallon than a year ago in fact this is a seven year high in the united states this is mainly because the price of brent crude oil have been an all-time high since 2014. this september it averaged 74.00 compare that to last september which was 34. so you can see it more than doubled and the current high price probably won't be the limit and us believe it'll average eighty one dollars for the rest of the year but it's not impossible to see crude oil prices reach a hundred dollar a barrel in the near future actually the market is actively buying options for a hundred dollars a barrel for 2022 and some buyers are shelling out 200 per barrel for this december overall experts believe this trend is due to low production supply disruption and increased demand but there's yet another reason it's happening behind the scenes let's talk about low production simply put right now not much oil is being produced in the world many dot production will be restored next year to the pre-pandemic level at the same time we have a global energy crisis with a sharp rise in gas and coal prices as energy demands grow the low production won't be able to meet the demand which means prices continue to rise so how did this happen in the spring of 2020 oil prices plummeted due to the pandemic remember airplanes were grounded cities were under locked down and there was enormous drop in fuel demand that's why the oil supply at that time was 20 percent higher than the demand needless to say members of opec agreed to reduce their oil production by a record amount almost 10 million barrels per day which is about 10 of world production this was the opec plus deal the u.s and other countries that aren't normally part of opec also cut production so all in all this meant a reduction of some 15 million barrels per day or more than 15 percent of the world's oil production prices quickly rose to 40 to 45 dollars per barrel exporters suffered huge losses even at relatively high prices that's because the cut in production cost them tens of billions of dollars the first tough pandemic lockdowns helped the global economy to start recovering so exporters started to increase production again they were cautious they didn't want to restore production fully or too quickly otherwise that would bring a drop in price the pandemic is still ongoing and if any country with a large economy let's say china for example would reinforce yet another new lockdown that would mean demand will plummet again so you can see how the situation has been quite volatile initially analysts thought that even a slow increase production by the opec members would make supply exceed demand for january 2022. and therefore lead to a drop in prices they believed this because u.s companies increased offshore oil production to pre-pandemic levels a few months ago before the pandemic the u.s production level led to an oil surplus on the world market but this initial forecast of an excess of supply turned out to be wrong this summer it became clear that a huge additional demand for oil could emerge in a world in the upcoming months for the first time in decades the price of natural gas in europe and asia exceeded the price of oil in terms of energy release so that's why analysts believe they'll see significant increase in oil demand from 750 000 to 2 million barrels per day this summer it also became evident that most of the opec plus members couldn't increase production even to the quotas that they'd agreed upon at the same time oil demand was growing much faster than previously forecasted in september 2021 the opec plus members increased production faster than they initially agreed to but they still couldn't keep up with the demand only russia and iraq are producing more oil than their quarters allowed the problem is many of the oil exporting countries don't have enough investment to return to previous production levels opec leadership denies this of course some people speculate that maybe they're just not reinvesting in oil production at pre-epidemic levels since the global economy is transitioning to green energy they point to the fact that even the largest private oil companies in the world have been investing in renewable energy in addition to future oil expansion recently british petroleum has been gambling big on a fast transition from oil to renewables that's because all major oil players are facing lots of pressure from government regulators and investors to develop cleaner energy and divest from fossil fuels since it's the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming so bp has been gambling to transition faster than its peers bp proposed to cut oil production by 40 or about a million barrels a day that's equal to the united kingdom's entire daily output in 2019 in addition bp is boosting capacity to generate electricity from renewable resources equivalent to the power made by 50 us nuclear plants going back to rising gasoline prices some people speculate that some oil exporting countries aren't quick to return the previous investment level in new oil production projects because of green energy they say the current oil situation is an opportunity to transition more quickly to green energy and abandon oil but unfortunately it's not all that simple the chief planner of the international energy agency which is responsible for green energy transition said that the transition could become quite messy the iea's new version of the energy transition plan shows a noble yet ambitious goal to achieve zero greenhouse gas by 2050. this will limit climate change to 2.7 degrees fahrenheit they believe that only the speed of transition will allow avoiding catastrophic consequences for the climate population and economy let's talk about electrification a few years ago stanford economists projected that evs will kill the global oil industry by 2030. if the world economy really starts abandoning fossil fuels at the speed that politicians are planting then some people think we'll reach the peak of oil consumption sooner than later which after that point oil demand will only go down would it surprise you to hear that gas giants bp and shell acquired ev charging companies they bought them with chump chains to diversify their holdings but it just goes to show that the oil industry acknowledges the electric future but the fact is that it'll probably take a bit longer than that before the ev uptake destroys oil demand frankly evs have a way to go before it can challenge the internal combustion engine industry and subsequently the oil industry to a significant degree here's why last year light plug-in and fuel cell cars plus electric city buses and two wheelers displaced some 370 000 barrels per day expert estimate that number will grow to 1.5 million barrels per day by 2025. that's 400 percent you might think that sounds like an insanely huge number the fact is that would be just 1.4 of the world's total oil demand so it's just a tiny dent and that's why oil investors aren't losing sleep over it yet here's another interesting metric last year just 2.7 percent of cars sold their evs experts believe it'll grow to 31 by 2040. so the ev has an upward trend and its long-term outlook is bright but nevertheless it's still decades away if governments want to accelerate the ev revolution they need to create more incentives for consumers to buy evs and create more subsidies to speed up the infrastructure growth and battery innovations recently biden administration has proposed investing heavily on ev infrastructure the uk previously had plans to ban sales of gasoline and diesel cars after 2040. but last year prime minister boris johnson announced they're moving up the deadline to 2030. just consider what major car companies are doing right now general motors pledged to focus on electric cars and be fully electric by 2035. jaguar plans for their cars to be fully battery electric by 2030. land rover projects their cars to be 60 bev by that time ford announced that all their cars in europe will be eevee by 2026. this fuels a lot of hope for the ev sector every revolution every war is about chaos and that's what we're seeing advances are being made on both sides it's hard to discern what the real turning point will be and when you have people with different views and projects and the only common thing we share is just knowing the storm is brewing let's talk about how the oil and gas lobbyists are reacting so the us senate passed a budget resolution in august for a 3.5 trillion dollar budget reconciliation package but then there's the american petroleum institute and you also have the american gas association they're two of the most powerful oil and gas lobbies in america since that budget resolution api and aga have been flooding facebook with targeted ads that oppose climate initiatives api alone sent 423 000 on facebook ads and these ads have been viewed some 21 million times their average ad spend is a bit shy of 11 000 a day which of course is peanut money for that aga has been spending too they spent 18 000 on facebook ads with the goal of moving people to contact their members of congress and vote no to higher energy costs and against the energy tax whatever the case and however things turn out one thing is for sure as far as the car world's concerned evs first died out in the early 1900s it re-emerged in the 1970s only to fade out again america just wasn't ready for it 30 to 40 years ago but then it re-entered mainstream america in the 21st century and this time it's not going to fizz out and die again this time it has a foothold and it's here to stay imagine you're looking to buy a new car and your top priority is not performance but fuel economy after researching a few models you decide on a car with a high published epa rating but after a month of use and driving around town you realize you're only getting a meager 24 miles per gallon on average and you wonder what happened to the promise 30 miles per gallon on highway and 28 miles per gallon combined and you wouldn't be alone to wonder that a lot of car and truck owners have complained about the gap between the fuel efficiency they thought they'd get and what they actually get on the road this leads many to wonder where the promised fuel economy is and whether it's a deliberate deception before any car maker can put a model out on the market it must first get approval from the epa did you know that since the late 1970s the epa has certified fuel economy projections for some 450 million new cars sold in the us the fuel efficiency projections that you see on the window stickers of new cars and trucks are there by law for example you might see city miles per gallon 16 and highway amounts per gallon 25. of course when you see those numbers they're boldly displayed and appear very official that's because they're coming from the federal government which gives it a lot of credibility after all the epa figures determine whether an automaker is meeting their required average fuel economy specifications for the company's entire vehicle line so these numbers are very important they're important for us as consumers as well because fuel efficiency is high on the list of things that new car buyers want so i think this is also a matter of trust guess how many employees work for the epa and how many of them actually test cars the common view is that the federal agency is working diligently to test every new truck car van and suv model but in reality for the most part it doesn't conduct tests on its own that's because it simply doesn't have the budget equipment or manpower to test hundreds of individual models each with its own unique engine and transmission combinations surprisingly only 18 of the epa's 17 000 plus employees work in the automotive testing department which is in ann arbor michigan these 18 employees analyze roughly 200 to 250 vehicles a year and research about 15 of new models as for the remaining 85 percent the epa allows each automaker to test their own vehicles and submit their test results the agency takes the figures provided by each individual car company as factual without any further testing and they approve the numbers that we end up with seen on the window sticker and that's why we see their stamp of approval in the words assessed by the epa this is one reason why actual mileage may differ from what you see in advertisements in the window sticker is the automaker interested in making the reported miles per gallon different from the actual mileage in a way yes when a car falls into the category of gas guzzler that is below 22.5 miles per gallon or when a brand's entire lineup falls short of the government's fuel economy regulations then someone has to pay literally that's because it's the law we can thank the energy act of 1978 which introduced what many call the gas guzzler tax this tax is added to the sticker price although it does not apply to trucks so for example the smallest fine a new car buyer will pay for the low fuel economy of a particular car can be a thousand bucks that's the line applied on a mercedes benz s 550 with its 14 miles per gallon sitting at 22 miles per gallon iowa the car with the worst fuel economy is a lamborghini murcielago that gets just eight miles a gallon city 13 on the highway for a combined 10 miles per gallon for this excess the buyer pays a fine to 6400 but the maximum penalty can go up to 7 700 for a car so it's not surprising since 1983 nearly 800 million dollars in fines have been collected by the irs from new car buyers car makers also have to pay if the fuel economy figures don't meet the standards set by the corporate average fuel economy regulations these regulations were also set in 1978 and applied to the entire vehicle fleet since the 2009 model year it was officially agreed that automakers should meet an average of 27.5 miles per gallon for passenger cars and 23.1 miles per gallon for light trucks car fleets are divided into three categories domestic cars imported cars and light trucks and each individual category must meet the requirements for fuel economy if any automaker fails to reach its market it'll be fine five dollars and fifty cents times each 0.1 miles per gallon under the threshold times the number of cars sold this is why for example ferrari paid 616 bucks for each of its 1645 vehicles sold in 2008 which amounted to over a million dollars a year in fines so as you can see manufacturers also have to pay too of course to keep the industry honest the epa does spot checks each year remarkably the agency says its own test results are almost always very close to those of the automakers but what happens when the agency and the automaker's performance has different according to the rules the epa retests the vehicle to evaluate the performance of the automaker fuel economy should be within three percentage points otherwise the automaker must accept the smaller of the two sets of numbers or request another retest but there are other reasons that can explain the differences in fuel economy estimates the fact is that the real world there are so many different variables that impact fuel economy like driving conditions behaviors and so forth absolute accurate miles per gallon simply is not possible as a result in 2008 the epa updated its testing protocols taking into account that real-life driving has more stops starts accelerates and decelerates and tends to be more aggressive and faster on highway and so on so while there's a marginal difference it does seem that epa and real world average fuel economy figures are much closer than ever before so how does the epa testing lab work the epa system was modified 1984 and also in 2008 to make it more relevant even though it still doesn't precisely reflect real-world driving the epa continues to use dynamometer-based stationary laboratory tests to ensure repeatability you can think of the dynamometer or dyno as a giant treadmill for cars the vehicle is held stationary while the wheels are turning large rollers on a chassis dynamometer there are three such stands one of which is an all-wheel drive unit with sets of rollers for both front and rear wheels while the other two dynos are rotated only by the drive wheels of the car either front wheel or rear wheel once the vehicle is secured to the dyno personnel under values and figures to simulate real-world factors such as wind and friction on the road the epa fuel economy test to certain parameters to follow then one of the epa's six experienced drivers will get behind the wheel to drive the test car the driver has to precisely follow a red line of speed against time which is displayed on the monitor hanging directly in front of the windshield the driver does his best to match the red line with the car's wheel speed actually it's much more difficult than you think if the speed deviates from the test cycle by more than two miles an hour the results don't get counted and you have to start over there's a crazy high number of documents that explains each procedure and circumstance in detail each with its own set of rules even the process of rounding off fuel economy tests results that gets published on a new car sticker label is unbelievably complicated but this is what the epa does on their end to get the most accurate miles per gallon rating they can on a dynamometer a key element of the epa's estimated average fuel economy is the separation between city and highway and driving almost all cars and trucks provide better fuel economy when driving at 55 miles on an open highway as opposed to stop and go traffic on city streets when it comes to calculating the combined miles per gallon the epa assumes that motorists drive 55 of the time in the city and 45 of the time on the highway that's the benchmark they use but of course in the real world if you live in a large city you'll likely spend more time in the city than 55 even if you spend a lot of time driving on a highway it's only considered highway if your average speed is 50 miles per hour and up try doing that rush hour traffic in houston it's impossible if you hit crawl on a traffic on the highway at a speed of 10 miles an hour then your fuel consumption will be closer to city than highway so if you're diligently keeping track of the number of miles you travel based on an agency's mpg rating it'll be hard not to be disappointed you can't simply add their numbers to your own driving habits honestly assessing your particular situation is the only way to accept epa rating differences or simply change your driving style to match it then your car's odometer will more accurately reflect the fuel economy now there are six factors that studies estimate could cause the car's actual fuel economy to differ significantly from the epa rating the first factor is the amount of city driving you do driving with frequent starts and stops can reduce the epa combined obsidian highway fuel efficiency by as much as 27 second your driving style can reduce fuel efficiency by up to 18 studies show that calm drivers benefit from 35 better fuel economy than over aggressive drivers a third factor that impacts fuel economy is the use of an air conditioner turning it on continuously results in a fuel efficiency reduction of up to 14 on older cars fourth the size of your car also plays a role it can reduce mileage by up to 15 percent a fifth reason has to do with your region and climate for example environments with hot weather and mountainous conditions can reduce fuel efficiency by as much as 12 and the last thing that can cause the real mileage to differ from epa is if you're constantly carrying heavy loads or passengers so take all that into mind before you jump to the conclusion that the epa rating is completely off by the way another thing to consider is the type of fuel you're using which can affect the fuel economy for example the epa conducts a test with 100 gasoline in the tank but most u.s gasoline contains eight to ten percent ethanol this ethanol is used to increase the amount of oxygen in the gasoline and to provide better fuel combustion but it alone can reduce fuel efficiency by about two percent which might sound a little but when you couple that with some of the other factors it can all add up now imagine that if you check box for two maybe three or even more of these six factors that reduce fuel economy the next question probably is why can't the agency take these nuances into account when testing cars the short answer is that it's simply not possible it's impossible to know what percentage of drivers in which terrain will have aggressive driving patterns in order to accurately calculate this figure it's also not possible to calculate exactly where every particular vehicles are driven the most and how often the air conditioner is on and so on also remember that most of the time although automakers conduct their tests with the agency's test protocols the final fuel efficiency figures are provided by the automakers themselves and not the epa so now you tell me what do you think of the epa ratings now that you know all this and do you keep track of your miles per gallon and if you have a funnier horror story about fuel economy please share by commenting below as always if you like this video please like and subscribe to my channel thanks for your support\n"