William Maley

Staff Writer - CheersandGears.com

December 17, 2012

Last month, Hyundai and Kia announced they had overstated their claims for fuel economy on a number of 2011 to 2013 model year vehicles. Now, the starting point of this whole incident could be from a phone call by a vice-president of an American automaker.

Automotive News reports that Margo Oge, retired head of the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality got a phone call from a "credible" senior VP of a domestic automaker that accused the two Korean brands of ""cheating" to get inflated mpg numbers." Oge didn't divulge the VP or the automaker.

Automotive News then contacted Chrysler, Ford, and GM asking if they were the automaker who made the phone call. The responses follow,

"It's not us," said Chrysler spokesman Eric Mayne.

"We cannot comment on any specific discussions, but Ford routinely speaks with policymakers about a wide variety of issues affecting our industry. We have been -- and remain -- an advocate of driving real fuel economy gains because it is in the best interest of our customers," said a Ford spokesman in an e-mail.

"We don't conduct our business in that manner," said GM spokeswoman Sharon Basel in an e-mail. Basel would go onto say the company would not bring in the Government to resolve a dispute.

Out of the three, Ford's response doesn't quite pass the Automotive News' smell test. The report does point out that PR people don't always know the goings on of senior management.

Will we find out who made the phone call? Maybe, but its highly doubtful.

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

William Maley is a staff writer for Cheers & Gears. He can be reached at [email protected] or you can follow him on twitter at @realmudmonster.

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A real mystery who did it based on those responses.

WHO CARES!!!

Real Question is will the EPA actually change to reflect REAL WORLD driving MPG.

Better to push towards a volt style system than to worry about MPG. Use CNG generators for cleaner exhaust and look to have superior performance from Electric motors.

What is "real world" driving? Your real world will differ from mine.

What is "real world" driving? Your real world will differ from mine.

Very true in your statement Drew, but we continue to see that people in the city and in the suburbans rarely get the Automakers posted MPG. The Media needs to push the EPA to change and either force a new way to measure real world driving on the auto's or drop the whole MPG thing and focus on a different rating all together.

Again, it varies so greatly. Even an individual's driving style can vary from car to car. I drive my '81 Oldsmobile a lot different than I drive a 2013 ZL-1, yet they get about the same mileage in the city. I drive a Chrysler 300C somewhere in between those two and yet I can tickle 30mpg highway.