Gas-mileage estimates questioned

By John Heilprin
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Within a couple of years, Americans could find the fuel-mileage estimates the government puts on new car and truck windows a little more sobering.

Current numbers may be higher than the mileage motorists actually experience, an environmental group says. That has the Environmental Protection Agency looking at whether it should change the way it calculates fuel efficiency for each make and model.

The agency has just begun collecting information in response to a petition for change from San Francisco-based environmentalist organization Bluewater Network. Any changes on the window stickers probably are a couple of years away.

"We're asking for more data to inform a decision either way," EPA spokesman John Millett said. "We just want as much information as possible to make a confident decision."

Bluewater Network contends the current stickers aren't accurate, and the government is misleading auto buyers and policy-makers by overestimating the average fuel economy of passenger vehicles.

Two years ago it petitioned EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to change fuel-mileage test procedures and calculations in use since 1985. NHTSA deferred to the EPA.

To support its petition, the group issued a report that said passenger vehicles were getting on average less than 20 miles per gallon on the road, or four to five miles per gallon less than government estimates.

"Thanks to the EPA, car owners are paying $200 to $300 more every year for gas than they thought they would," said Russell Long, the group's executive director.

Out-of-date information and assumptions, the environmental group says, include a national speed limit of 55 mph and that motorists spend little more than half their time driving in cities. Today's posted highway speed limits almost always are higher, and increased traffic congestion and urban sprawl have made for more city driving, the group says.