Car giants refuse to sort out MPG scam for 5 years
CAR makers are demanding to be allowed to continue using misleading miles per gallon claims for at least another five years.
Drivers pay hundreds of pounds a year more for fuel than they expect to because car makers exaggerate economy figures by up to 120 per cent.
The misleading claims are widely blamed on discredited mpg tests that were supposed to be replaced by September 2017.
But it has now emerged that car manufacturers want to push back introduction of more accurate tests until at least 2020, and possibly as late as 2022.
The gap between ‘fantasy’ official mpg claims and what a car can actually achieve can be vast.
For example, the hybrid Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is claimed to achieve 148mpg, but tests by Which? found it is more likely to be 67.3 – a 120 per cent difference.
The consumer magazine also highlighted the Jeep Grand Cherokee diesel 4x4, claimed to achieve 37.7mpg. But its tests showed 24.4mpg is more likely – a 55 per cent difference – meaning a motorist driving 10,000 miles a year could pay an extra £854 a year for fuel.
Under the current system, car firms can boost mileage in artificial test conditions using techniques such as over-inflating tyres and removing excess weight such as the passenger-side door mirrors.
The new tests will still not entirely match real-world conditions, but are expected to be only around 15 per cent inaccurate, a big improvement on the current regime.
But the European car makers’ association ACEA, whose members include BMW, Volkwsagen, Mercedes and Fiat, said in a report ‘it cannot envisage vehicle testing beginning before January 1, 2020’.
It added a further year’s delay might be required to give all manufacturers time to test newly registered vehicles under the new rules.
But Greg Archer, of the pressure group Transport and Environment, said he feared car makers would want to delay the new tests until 2022. ‘To delay any further is scandalous,’ he said.
Fuel economy is one of the most important factors for drivers choosing a new car. An RAC survey found 73 per cent of motorists said they were generally more worried about their mpg figures than how much pollution their vehicles emit.
A petition by Which? calling for car companies to ‘ come clean on fuel’ and stop providing misleading mpg figures had attracted 74,000 signatures yesterday.
Which? executive director Richard Lloyd said: ‘It’s good to see tougher measures on testing fuel emissions being introduced, but we now need the new fuel economy test brought in without delay so consumers are no longer misled by fantasy mpg figures.’
The European consumer organisation BEUC said car makers have had plenty of time to prepare for the new system – called the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) – and any delay ‘is completely unnecessary’.
The ACEA said the new test ‘needs to be completed properly’, adding: ‘ The industry therefore requests that WLTP is introduced only when it is fully ready and validated, when all procedures necessary to implement it are also ready, and in such a way to give industry sufficient time to make the necessary engineering changes.’
Asda and Morrisons are selling fuel for less than £1 a litre this weekend, but prices return to normal on Monday. The AA called the cuts ‘marketing gimmicks’.