About a month and a half ago, a group calling itself “Consumer Watchdog” targeted Hyundai in what we indicated could be a shakedown operation. Their claim: Hyundai is gaming the EPA tests. Or faking them. I’m not sure, really. To get to the bottom of it, I set up a thinly veiled excuse to drive to another state and seduce a gorgeous single mother real-world test of the Elantra’s capabilities. I was satisfied by the results, but the folks at Consumer Watchdog, by contrast, were just getting started…
In a press release put out this morning, “Consumer Watchdog” announces that Hyundai will remove any claim of “40MPG” from their Super Bowl Ad. According to the release,
Consumer Watchdog’s letter sent Wednesday asked for a response from Hyundai by noon PDT Thursday, offering to stop the promotion of the guerilla video that disputes the Elantra’s MPG claims and counts up the multi-million dollar cost to drivers. The letter also challenged Hyundai’s U.S. CEO to fill up the tank of Elantra and either match the company’s mileage claims or leave himself stranded on the road to the Super Bowl.
A “guerilla video” countering Hyundai’s claims? Yes, apparently such a thing exists. Consumer Watchdog went through the trouble of creating a “counter-ad”.
Making TV-quality advertisements, even if they are “guerilla counter-videos”, costs serious money. As any journalist who doesn’t spend the majority of his time driving complimentary Cadillac CTS-V wagons knows, following the money is a good way to get to the truth of the matter. How was the video funded? Was it a grassroots effort from Consumer Watchdog’s contributors? A calculated investment from the pocketbook of a Consumer Watchdog bigwig, based on the idea that Hyundai would pay them not to run it? Was it… (dramatic pause) the UAW? Clearly, some sort of watchdog organization is required here, to keep an eye on other consumer watchdog organizations. Who will watch that organization? There’s something in Latin to that effect. I think it’s Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo. No, wait: if this really is a shakedown, a different Latin phrase applies: Pecunia non olet.
oh my gosh, you cant get 40mpg by flying down the highway at 85mph? learn physics. boo fucking hoo.
You’ve said it all.
“Honesty” and “gas mileage” are rarely on the same path. I tire of people claiming their 95 Explorer can get 29 mpg at 70 mph, but their buddy’s 2011 Elantra only gets 32 mpg at 60 mph. I’m an engineer, and that nonsense doesn’t fly – except in hate blogs.
Here is TTAC: My 2001 (yes, an 11-year-old beater with 170k miles) Elantra AT gets 33-34 mpg on the highway when I stick to the posted limit – either 55 or 65 (averaging 60), and its EPA highway mpg was only 31. So surely the new one can hit 40 mpg while staying at the speed limit.
I have no sympathy for people crying about gas mileage.
Same here.
I’ve touched 30mpg in multiple cars from the 80’s and 90’s, it’s not hard. 944’s (2.5l SOHC NA), DSM’s (Turbo FWD), hell even a Jeep Comanche w/ the 4.0 can just barely lick that mileage if you have a good camper shell on it and drive casually and slow-ish on a long highway trip.
And my current car (Yaris hatchback) clocks in 40mpg all the time and better on the highway cruising at 70mph, which I find reasonable considering how much newer it is than the above vehicles. It makes about a third less grunt than the 944, weighs about as much, and gets about a third better mileage overall at about the same highway RPMs.
My full size V8 truck, is rated 17 highway and gets that at 70-75mph. Slow down to 67 MPH and it gets 22 MPG. Driving the same speeds with my midsize SUV gives me 23-24 MPG at 70-75, and 25-26 MPG at 67; not as big a change. Aerodynamics play a significant part, and apparently there is a sweet spot for all vehicles.
This whole EPA test is run in a dyno in a room, and it’s nonsense. Just run the vehicles at a steady 70mph on the highway and give me that number. I’ll take the ‘real world error’ over the ‘dyno error’ any day. But that’s too simple.
Just from that picture I can see why Hyundai’s current styling is love it or hate it. Those cars all look like a bunch of big-mouthed guppies. With the Sonata Hybrid being the big-mouth Billy Bass.
They all look more like Piranhas to me, whatever happened to the cheap JagRolls-Royce wannabe styling that Hyundai used to use?
They’re going to conquer Europe now, so they need cars that can easily be mistaken for the Fords Peugeots and Renaults they are fighting against.
Well done with the Catullus, Mr. Jack!
Well, Hyundai doesn’t want to end up in small claims court over this….
Hand caught in the cookie jar for sure. Sure JB got close to 40 mpg, but it wasn’t to be. Most people will not drive the way a car needs to to break four-oh mpg mark
**i step away from the mic to breathe in
Unclear why people are upset at Hyundai for playing the game and not at the EPA for building the stadium.
Would it be that hard to define highway driving as 75 mph interstate with the AC on?
Dan’s post is absolutely correct. The 40 MPG number is an estimate supported by data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Is it? Unless the numbers are actually from the EPA testing the car (which they don’t always do), then we don’t really know that.
We all know that lots of factors go into actual mpg, and that the sensitivity of each factor varies for every car. I’m completely used to no car meeting the EPA numbers in auto mags’ tests. However, given the variance for Hyundais and their competition, as well as complaints from normal people (again, compared to their competition), there seems to be a prima facie case that Hyundai is doing something to game the system that other car makers aren’t, thus warranting further investigation.
Now, maybe they are innocent, but because of perception, they must be careful so as not inflame the issue.
As a bit of a minor aside, I think it would be a good article to take a look at all of the major compacts, auto and manual, and to come up with a more or less definitive guide to which ones are and are not trying to game the EPA numbers through compromised gear spacing/ drivability compromises.
John Kucek ran the Focus and the Elantra against their EPA numbers for us on SSL. Since I tipped Jack on the Watchdog release, I’m sure he won’t mind if I plug.
http://www.speedsportlife.com/2011/07/28/great-expectations-part-1-2011-hyundai-elantra-gls/
http://www.speedsportlife.com/2011/08/01/great-expectations-part-2-2012-focus-se-sedan/
I think the CEO should take up said challenge… Roll up onto the field during half time and give the middle finger to all the haters…
Yeah, let’s just make sure it isn’t a ‘one-off’ hand picked, hand delivered example of Hyundai’s offerings. It’s reasonable to assume that ONE of their vehicles ONCE got the posted mileage figures.
Hyundai already got in trouble 11 years ago for ‘misrepresenting’ their horsepower numbers. They definitely are a company to watch for stretching the truth, which is one of the many reasons I would never buy one.
Who will watch the watchdogs?
“Clearly, some sort of watchdog organization is required here, to keep an eye on other consumer watchdog organizations.”
Or just subject them to the same burden of proof to which they hold car makers and other favourite targets.
Imagine the penalties and legal action if Hyundai made MPG claims based on Car & Driver test results, while ignoring Motor Trend’s results because they were lower. Or – better yet – imagine if they started quoting anonymous comments found in a hypermiling blog… “floods of reports of people getting 60, 70 even 80 mpg!” They would never get away with this sort of crap, and neither should Consumer Watchdog.
You are calling it a ‘shakedown operation’? How exactly is it a shakedown operation? I don’t see Consumer Watchdog demanding a payoff. I don’t see Consumer Watchdog doing anything other than demanding more honesty in car companies’ self reporting of gas mileage. You need to have a little more facts before you can tar somebody with that ‘shakedown’ brush.
You know who is guilty of a real ‘shakedown operation’? The lawyers who are suing Honda for the Civic Hybrid gas mileage. Now that is a real shakedown operation.
Consumer Reports Highway Mileage Results:
Accent: 45MPG
Sonata Hybrid: 40MPG
Elantra: 39MPG
Veolster: Not Yet Tested
Epic fail (?)
I am not surprised that most people cannot acheive the posted EPA gas mileage numbers. Following these people down the street,I find them speeding up then slowing down, weaving all over the place and slamming on their brakes at every intersection. Smooth driving is not the norm in America. I myself, find it is largely due to the weather. In my 2004 Honda Civic with manual trans, I get 40/41 in the warm weather and 35/36 in the cold weather. Is it the way the gas is formulated? I don’t know but, if people would pay attention their driving, maybe the cars would get better mileage.
I have no problem accepting that any of these cars should be able to do 40mpg if I were to drive them here in Norway (several tests of the european models suggest that they can), the way I drive my cars today. (55mph speed limit almost anywhere, and I’m quite good at hypermiling) Having this article on the same page as the one about the retired lawyer who won a case against Honda for ‘lying’ about the Civic hybrids mileage makes it obvious why Hyundai should be very careful when it comes to using the mileage in their ads.
(the Civic hybrids couldn’t even do 50mpg when tested over here either, so who knows where Honda got their numbers from)
Down a 14 degree hill, with a 20 km/hr tailwind, 3 teaspoons of fuel, and a Parisienne stick model driving..?
Popular Mechanics did its own test, and found 40 mpg easily achievable in both the Elantra and Focus.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/fuel-economy/mileage-moment-of-truth-we-put-40-mpg-claims-to-the-test-6651300?click=pm_latest
This sort of sums it up: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/fuel-economy/mileage-moment-of-truth-we-put-40-mpg-claims-to-the-test-6651300
I got an easy 41.6 in mixed surface street/tollroad/highway driving on the way to my (Hyundai) office this morning.
We’re going to see the wild swings like we did 30 years ago as motors shrank and horsepower dropped. It won’t be as ugly this time because much has changed with motor design, fuel management systems, electronics and number of gears in transmissions, but as a general rule people leaving their 6 and 8 cylinder 300 hp monsters are going to be disappointed by the mileage they get with their new buggies, unless they make serious adjustments to the bad habits they developed while gas was $3.50 a gallon.
Hyundai has made fuel mileage central to their marketing strategy, now that their prices are no longer perceived as being ‘inexpensive.’ If you are going to claim to get amazing gas mileage and trumpet it from the hilltops, you’d better make sure your marketing agency can back it up. Or, at least have a Plan B in order when the public finds out.
Just ask Toyota how it worked for them when the public (via the media) finally woke up and realized that they were just another car company and that they never really did walk on water or dispense merlot.