Lies damned lies and Green miles per gallon figures.

Well you want to buy a new family car but you also want to be Green. Should you purchase the 5 seater Peugeot 3008 Hybrid4 with its ultra-economical 70.6mpg or what you really need the mini MPV people carrier from Renault the 7 seater Grand Scenic 1.6 but it only does 64.2 mpg that’s 10% less Green. “Oh what shall we do George? We will just have to leave granny and tiny Tim at home and spend the extra €6,000 we were putting aside for Tim’s leg operation and buy the ever so Green Peugeot Hybrid.”

A common scene played out in many a  sitting room across Ireland! But wait, could this be true we have been misled by the Greens and in fact the Renault is actually more economical than the Peugeot Hybrid? Yes we are back to the Greens tried and trusted friend – the simulation/computer model. When you take these two cars off the rolling road driven by a computer simulation of a driver and actually give the cars to real people and drive on real roads we find the Renault does 3.6mpg more than the hybrid. These new figures are produced by Sensors Inc. “an American vehicle emissions specialist”. The US has now moved over to this empirical method of calculating MPG from the system still used in Europe. Why does the EU cling to an outdated system which favours Green vehicles over their (apparently) less environmentally friendly cousins? Like so many statistics used by the Green economy they do not stand up too well to scrutiny.

“Oh joy of joys tiny Tim shall walk again and granny can after all come along with the rest of the family to the zoo.”

Source – Sunday Times ‘ingear’ “Drop It! Why the Official MPG test has to go” 29.04.12