Fuel Economy

[adciv]

Earlier today I went to a Honda Dealership while both my parents vehicles were in for servicing. Now, as my parents have owned Hondas since '86, I have payed attention to them for several years. Now, as has been said, the Japanese manufacturers have traditionally had higher fuel economy than the US cars. However, between the sticker mileages I saw earlier and real world mileage on my parents and my own cars, I have noticed a significant decrease in the fuel economy of the newer cars. My mothers '96 Odyssey gets 25/33 city/highway. The new Odyseeys are listed as 16/26. The new accords are listed as 21/31, mine gets 25/37. I was curious if anyone else had noticed these trends. It is worrying(?)/interesting(?) that Honda, of all manufacturers, has had that much of a drop.

To repeat, the numbers give for my accord and my mothers Odyssey are real world, while the ones for the new vehicles are the sticker listing.

[Nagasaki]

That is kinda interesting, you would think especially the way things are now that would be a huge selling point. Maybe they've changed the way they calculate the MPG within the last few years?

[Martin Blank]

Model year 2008 and later vehicles are on a completely new mileage calculation method. The old one essentially was done under perfect conditions. The new method accounts for traffic conditions, use of air conditioning, and so forth. Most cars tested under old and new lost 10% to 15% of their mileage levels from before.

[ampersand]

I heard as a kind of a joke that the average American walks 900 miles a year and drinks 22 gallons of alcohol a year, thus giving the mean American an average mpg of 40.909. Ought to be the gold standard for car efficiency, methinks.

[Martin Blank]

22 gallons?

WTF... I am so far behind...

[The Cid]

I heard as a kind of a joke that the average American walks 900 miles a year and drinks 22 gallons of alcohol a year, thus giving the mean American an average mpg of 40.909. Ought to be the gold standard for car efficiency, methinks.

A) The average American walks 900 miles a year? Yeah, right.
B) The average American is drinking close to two gallons of alcohol per month? The average fraternity member doesn't drink that much!!

[StruckingFuggle]

Well, the average american can be below the average values, if the outliers are big enough, and there's probably a LOT of alcoholics out there, coupled with college students...

[Arc Orion]

I dunno. Unless you're measuring just the alcohol content, it's not that out of the realm of possibility. A can of beer is 12 ounces, and with a gallon being 128 ounces, it would only take about a couple of dozen cans to surpass two gallons.

As for the walking, I spend most of my day walking around the store. In addition to that, even with a car, I still spend plenty of time walking from one place to another. I probably walk over two miles during a whole work day. On top of that, with my regular exercise, I jog altogether at least another fifteen miles or so a week. That adds up. Note, I'm not claiming I'm the average American, but with a little math, it appears that I will put at least 1300 miles into my personal locomotion within a year.

[StruckingFuggle]

I dunno. Unless you're measuring just the alcohol content, it's not that out of the realm of possibility. A can of beer is 12 ounces, and with a gallon being 128 ounces, it would only take about a couple of dozen cans to surpass two gallons.

Though hand, beer, especially american beer, isn't very energy effiicent, so actually ... if you just go by sheer liquid, it's an almost useless measurement...

... I would like to see the data on this, though, including the info on the actual study. Could be interesting.

[Arc Orion]

We have gone from fuel economy to beer economy within the space of ten posts. I love RLF.

[ampersand]

I don't know where he got the alcohol data, but the walking came from a Harvard (I presume Harvard School of Medicine) study. Then again, I heard it on Car Talk, so who knows?

Well, the average american can be below the average values, if the outliers are big enough, and there's probably a LOT of alcoholics out there, coupled with college students...

I think you mean the median american can be below the average (or mean) values. Which in this case, the curve would probably be right-leaning in terms of skewness. (Yes, I was reading a statistics book last weekend.)

[StruckingFuggle]

*fffacepalm*

NOW I need to re-read my Stats textbook before I can comment on statistics again. Muurgle... at least it's just the easy conceptual stuff, not a lot into the guts of the tests...


AGH ANOVAS. WE HAVE SPSS FOR A REASON.