Compare EU/US fuel efficiency...

Here's a fun game to play...

Look up the same model of car on a US retailer's site and an EU retailer's site, and compare the fuel efficiency of the models, keeping in mind that they are the SAME models, and ask yourself why the EU cars are always more fuel efficient?

What possible justification can there be, other than the fact that gas is so damn cheap in the US, and the oil companies know they can get US consumers to buy more than their EU counterparts?

I'll get the ball rolling, with the BMW 325Ci:

www.bmw.co.uk...

www.bmwusa.com...

US Highway: 27mpg
UK Highway: 37.2mpg


-koji K.


[edit on 7-5-2005 by koji_K]

1) the UK uses Imperial gallons which are bigger than standard U.S. gallons.

2) Furthermore the specific test procedures used in the US versus EU for measuring 'highway' fuel efficiency are not identical.

3) US vehicles are indeed slightly less fuel efficient on average, because the US regulations favor lowering smog (excluding CO2) heavier than in the EU and that favors some engine tuning procedures and designs which lead to less fuel efficiency. For instance, at cold startup, US cars dump lots of unburnt fuel into the exhaust---intentionally. The reason is that this will hit the catalytic converter, which will burn it quickly and heat up quickly, and with a warm converter, then the (much harder to deal with) nitrogen oxides will be dealt with more efficiently.

Sigh, I suppose you're right. I based my, in retrospect, rather un-fun game on some ill-considered premises. Still, not to lose the forest for the trees, countries with higher gasoline taxes have more fuel efficient vehicles. So, is it going to take higher gas taxes before people in the U.S. realize this, or should we make a voluntary effort to pre-empt the need?

-koji K.

It will take higher gasoline prices.

It will not work if the higher prices occur because of higher taxes only, because unlike Europe, there is not a general social agreement that high gasoline taxes are a good idea.

The response to high fuel prices on account of taxes will result in people being very upset at the government and will force them to reduce taxes. The type of people who really hate those taxes are often the same ones who naturally buy large trucks---and not just because of economic reasons. They would intentionally NOT buy fuel-efficient cars out of protest---and the increase in prices due to higher taxes would make people more suspicious of any rise in fuel prices, even if it were not due to more taxes.

If the fuel prices were to increase because of authentic lower oil supply/demand factors, and it appeared that this price increase were permanent, and would get worse in the future---then US drivers would definitely switch to more efficient vehicles. It won't ever be like Europe, but already there is significant movement among some. You can feel a buzz that people are really starting to pay attention to fuel efficiency in buying cars. It's not the central priority but compared to how it used to be---where it was deemed almost irrelevant---it is a big shift. Maybe it's greater in California (where I am), but California does have 33 million people or something like that---almost the population of Poland.

Ford and GM, which are heavily dependent on trucks and SUVs for profitability have recently shown large losses. This isn't due to a poor economy, as Toyota and Nissan reported superb results in the US.

Toyota's Prius has a very long waiting list and slightly used cars can sell for more than full retail price.

US cars and trucks, however, have to be heavily discounted.

There's also the fact that US makers can't make decent cars, unlike the Japanese---and now Koreans.

Also, many European countries [sorry if someone already mentioned this] are using diesel fuels to power their cars. The engines which we [ the US ] decided not to use in the 70's are now cleaner and more efficient than our 87 octane engines. I'm expecting to see huge waves of diesel cars in the next few years.

The germans (once again) lead the americans in modern diesel engines.

It's true that the new turbo direct-injection diesels are much better than old diesels. They have OK power and great torque. They do cost more than gasoline engines, but the fuel efficiency is substantially higher. In the EU 50-75% of cars are now diesel.

The reason why diesels have been absent for the most part from US cars is not because of customer demand. It's because the diesel fuel in the US has much more sulfur than in Europe. You see, the US refineries didn't want to spend the money to upgrade their refineries to make cleaner fuel that would be good enough for widespread passenger car use.

They whined that it wasn't possible, even though some of the same companies accomplish it for European markets just fine.'

A combination TDI and hybrid electric would give superb fuel efficiency---with the electric motor providing instantaneous acceleration that the diesels are not so good at.

Originally posted by mbkennel
1) the UK uses Imperial gallons which are bigger than standard U.S. gallons.

That is right, but... 1 US gal = 3.8 liters, while 1 UK gal = 4.54 liters.
That gives, reduced to mpl (miles per liter):
US: 7.1 mpl
UK: 8.2 mpl

That is about 15% of difference... Even with what follows, it is still a big difference...

2) Furthermore the specific test procedures used in the US versus EU for measuring 'highway' fuel efficiency are not identical.

3) US vehicles are indeed slightly less fuel efficient on average, because the US regulations favor lowering smog (excluding CO2) heavier than in the EU and that favors some engine tuning procedures and designs which lead to less fuel efficiency. For instance, at cold startup, US cars dump lots of unburnt fuel into the exhaust---intentionally. The reason is that this will hit the catalytic converter, which will burn it quickly and heat up quickly, and with a warm converter, then the (much harder to deal with) nitrogen oxides will be dealt with more efficiently.

One thing that you can't discount when talking about the U.S. and the E.U., as far as cars are concerned, is the huge difference in "pop-culture". Even when gas was cheap throughout europe the trend was toward smaller cars with small engines, while the big V-8 has been the brass ring for most americans for decades. Look at the most popular cars from each continent, Europe had the VW's, the MG's, even in the fastest porches you find only a modest 6 cylinder engine (highly tuned and turbo charged though) you can't count Ferraris or Lambos because they dont count for a signifigant number of cars on the road. In the U.S. however, the Muscle Car, big V-8 mustangs, corvettes, camaros etc. have always been hot sellers, not to mention the fixation on the big SUV's and Pickups and the cadillacs or other large sedans. The exhaust note alone can sell a car in the U.S., a serious V-8 growl will always get an american males heart pounding.

You can say that Europeans choose the smaller engined cars because of fuel prices, that may be true today, in 2005, but what about 35 or 40 years ago in the hieght of the Muscle Car craze. Americans gobbled it up, the europeans didn't seem to. Anybody whose seen the god-awfull contraption called The Smart Car that is popular in the U.K. will know, it's not just fuel prices, there's a serious difference in automotive tastes between the two sides of the atlantic. Now you can speculate that if the U.S. ever gets gas prices as high as Europe that Amaericans will run out and trade in the Mustang GT for a Smart Car Crossblade, but I'd be willing to bet alot of people have the big V-8 in their DNA in the U.S., I may be wrong but I don't think so.

Other people in this thread have pointed out the technical differences between gas mileage in the U.S. and E.U., and maybe this post doesn't belong here, but it seems somebody's got to point out that theres more to the fuel efficiency differences overall than just gas prices.

1) Consumer prices of fuel were always higher in Europe because of taxes.

2) In the big-fat sedan 50's and muscle-car 60's, the USA was far far wealthier than
Europe on average. The average European couldn't afford larger, more powerful, cars!

Of course there were always some wealthy Europeans and aristrocrats, but they would often be Old Money, and the brazen American styles would be considered 'gauche'.

Certainly virtually no testosterone-fueled teenager could afford a 'muscle car' anywhere like what was in the USA.

3) Europeans and Japanese are more concentrated in cities, and parking and traffic are really bad. In the USA, only central Boston and San Francisco are comparable. So a smaller car is better.

4) There were additional fees and taxes on cars---numerous countries had displacement
taxes, so that further engendered the idea behind "highly tuned smaller engines".

5) European "performance" ideas were based more on country racing than stop light drags (consider geography). There a high performance car means "top speed" and "handling", and less 0-60 acceleration. Thus somewhat of a bias away from massive displacement to get honking low speed acceleration (but whose big heavy engines were not so good for high speed stability).

6) These days BMW and Mercedes-Benz are getting into the huge hp huge displacement muscle car business.