Check out the EPA site: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm

The MINIs get a 2 for Air Quality (10 is the best), while most other cars get 6 and above.

Thanks.

I’m not a powertrain engineer, but I’d expect as with most other things, the higher you take the fuel economy, the tougher it is to make further improvements. So you have to do a lot of little things to make a noticeable improvement. Considering the claimed broader powerbands from the new powerplants, a roughly 10% improvement seems like a nice improvement to me and certainly a step in the right direction. I’d gladly take more of course, but even if we’re not at the EPA estimates, I’m betting it’s still improved from the 28 mpg I see in mostly non-congested rural/interstate driving.

I switched to colour and I’m getting 6 more miles to the gallon! ;)

European tests are different with a different method of measuring miles per gallon. Look at the disparity in those figures from Europe to the U.S.

This is probably caused by the fact that the Euro gallon is different than the USA gallon. 1 UK/European gallon = about 1.2 US gallons.

Yet another example of the USA “doing our own thing” and confusing the heck out of everyone! Heh. (like spelling… color instead of colour, etc.)

“The EPA tests do not directly measure fuel consumption, but rather calculate the amount of fuel used by measuring emissions from the tailpipe based on a formula created in 1972. The cars are not actually driven around a course, but are cycled through specific profiles of starts, stops, and runs on a chassis dynamometer in a laboratory environment. As emissions standards have become more strict due to smog, most of the resulting numbers do not directly correspond to what people actually experience when driving. Most often, the EPA estimate of mileage is several percent higher than what the average driver manages to achieve in practice, although there are some cases where the difference is nearly 200% higher than what the average driver achieves.”

“In the United Kingdom, the Vehicle Certification Agency [5] has initiated a similar fuel economy rating system in accordance with European Community Directive 93/116/EC. The ratings are based on an urban and extra-urban driving cycle. The urban cycle is a cold start followed by “a series of accelerations, steady speeds, decelerations and idling. Maximum speed is 31 mph (50 km/h), average speed 12 mph (19 km/h) and the distance covered is 2.5 miles (4 km).” The extra-urban cycle is conducted immediately following the urban cycle and consists of roughly half steady-speed driving and the remainder accelerations, decelerations, and some idling. Maximum speed is 75 mph (120 km/h), average speed is 39 mph (63 km/h) and the distance covered is 4.3 miles (7 km).”