Tell EPA which new car label you want
The EPA is proposing new fuel economy labels for new cars. Depending on the label chosen you might be able to tell at a glance how fuel efficient or gluttonous your potential new car is. At this point there are two different styles under consideration.
Label 1 includes a grading system to let customers know where cars fall as far as emissions are concerned. The grades range from A+ to D. Label 2 contains the same information without the grade. New features are color coding, and a QR code. The color coding follows car types. For example, green covers electric vehicles. You can see the labels and check them out on the EPA website.
The QR code takes you to a “a web page, allowing consumers at a dealership to compare vehicles and personalize estimates, based on their own driving habits and fuel costs.” If you don’t have a smartphone that reads QR codes, there will be a website on labels that you can access from your computer or netbook.
Both labels will give you information on the usual estimated miles per gallon, projected annual fuel cost and how many gallons it will take to drive the car 100 miles and emissions information. You can also see where the car you are looking at falls in relation to other cars in the same class.
The new labels for electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and compressed gas have more interesting information. Electric vehicle labels will give you the mileage range of the vehicle on one charge, the kW-hrs per 100 miles, the miles per gallon equivalency (MPGe) for both city and highway, CO2 emissions and projected amount of “fuel cost”.
Duel Fuel Plug-in hybrids get labels that will tell you the “Blended Electric+Gas” figures for the first 50 miles; “Gas Only” combined MPG and number of gallons needed to drive 100 miles; and “Blended and Gas Only combined” emissions and annual fuel costs.
Compressed natural gas vehicle labels will give you the mileage range per tank, egallon equivalency for 100 miles, miles per gallon equivalency, emissions and annual fuel cost. You also get emissions information and of course, the ubiquitous fuel costs.
Over the last few years a lot of alternative fuel cars have made allegations that their cars will get unbelievable “gas mileage”. Coming up with a way to compare electric, hybrid, and fossil fuel vehicles has not been easy. As of July, the EPA’s formula had not been finalized. A couple of methods exist and can be found on Wikipedia, About.com and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory website.
They are asking for comments on the labels. If you want to put your two cents in you can click here. Personally, I like the graded ones. But then again I always liked As.
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