After the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, I found myself pausing before writing this blog post about the auto industry. As everyone knows, many cars were flooded with so much water, they were rendered inoperable. This was true for cars that were parked on the street as well as for those that were parked in garages. Some people lost their homes and others their lives during an eight hour period of unspeakable tragedy.
The residents of New York and New Jersey are still recovering. Many homes and businesses are still without electricity. And the gas stations that are actually selling gasoline have lines of cars that stretch out for blocks.
Governor Christie of New Jersey instituted an odd-even gas policy for some locations to cope with the long lines. I almost expected to see Jimmy Carter in the background, in the midst of the OPEC crisis, being teleported here from the 1970's.
On Friday, a minimum of three people were needed to be in one car to be allowed into Manhattan from one of the outer boroughs. And the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel (recently renamed after former New York governor Hugh Carey) is still closed and still recuperating from the flooding and the damage it incurred on Monday.
This article, however, is about fuel efficiency and the inaccurate reporting about vehicles such as the Hyundai Elantra.
The Elantra, as well as other vehicles manufactured by Hyundai and Kia, overstated its fuel efficiency and then advertised this overstatement with stickers bragging that the car gets 40 miles to the gallon. This mileage figure is used as one of the main selling points for the car. As the New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported, this number, representing highway mileage, was off by a couple of miles. Hyundai was sued over this back in July of this year.
Now the company freely admits its wrongdoing and is more than willing to compensate its unsuspecting customers by reimbursing the difference between the gas mileage as it was reported and what the actual mileage is. This concession will be firmly in place for as long as the owners of these cars are still driving them.
In this cynical world we live in, my first impulse is to believe that Hyundai tried to get away with something; that the company knew what the real numbers were, but were unwilling to report the real numbers. Who knows whether this is indeed the case?
This is how the New York Times reported this story:
The admission followed an investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency into consumer complaints that their cars were underperforming the official mileage estimates on the window stickers of new Hyundai and Kia vehicles. While few drivers achieve the stickered mileage levels under real-world conditions, the government requires automakers to conduct standardized tests to calculate the figures so that buyers can more easily compare the fuel efficiency of various models.Hyundai and Kia apologized to customers for what they called “procedural errors” in testing that resulted in incorrect mileage stickers on some of their most popular models, like the Hyundai Elantra and Kia Rio.
The full story may be read by visiting this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/business/hyundai-and-kia-acknowledge-overstating-the-gas-mileage-of-vehicles.html?_r=0
The Times also indicated that the reported numbers are not necessarily reflective of real-world driving conditions. At one point, the velocity of the cars being tested did not exceed 60 miles per hour. Perhaps a reason existed for this limitation, but maybe not. According to the Times, this procedure was revised. What is also unclear is whether the fuel efficiency in question refers to city driving, highway driving, or some combination of the two.
So maybe the EPA should share in the blame as automakers scamper to meet President Obama's targeted goal of 35 miles per gallon.
Speaking of President Obama, I am reminded of the presidential election that is scheduled to take place in two days. The campaign has taken a back seat to Hurricane Sandy; this lack of media coverage will work in the President's favor. Governor Christie, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, and New York governor Andrew Cuomo have all praised the president for his handling of the crisis--his accessibility, his generosity, and his concern for the welfare of those who have been traumatized by Sandy. Gone are the negative comments of the campaign. It will be that much harder, after a crisis of this magnitude, to vote against the incumbent.
