Filed under: Diesel, MPG, Volkswagen, Europe/EU, Germany
German journalists eke out 73 mpg in a production car
This time, a high mile per gallon number was recorded in Europe and not with a Peugeot. A group of German motor journalists managed to get 3.2 l/100 km (73 mpg U.S.) in a Skoda Fabia TDI Greenline. The car had a 1.4 TDI (diesel) engine good for 80 HP. The thirty-six journalists (we're guessing not all of them at the same time) drove the Czech subcompact for 124 km (about 80 miles), using normal highways between Austria and Germany and never going below 60 km/h (40 mph). The only "trick" they used was maintaining as constant a speed as possible. The 73mpg figure handily beats the official EU highway cycle figure, which is 4.1 l/100 km (57mpg). Skoda belongs to the VW group and is based in the Czech Republic.
[Source: Auto Presse]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Joseph 9:25PM (6/03/2008)
"using normal highways between Austria and Germany and never going below 60 km/h (40 mph)"
Well then for all we know those "normal highspeeds" could've been just a meager 50mph.
Alot of cars can get 73mpg, or better, if they're driven so slowly and carefully. (Honda Insight, VW Diesels, maybe Honda Civic Hybrid and/or Toyota Prius and dozens of small diesel cars in Europe)
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why not the LS2LS7? 11:49PM (6/03/2008)
If you look at what the hypermilers do, this isn't a very good performance. And the hypermilers do 45mph minimum on the expressway.
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Das Boese 3:40AM (6/04/2008)
The comment about the 60km/h minimum speed is likely just because it's the minimum allowed speed on the Autobahn.
I imagine they were coasting along at low rpms in 5th gear, that'd be an average 80-100 km/h, which is about the normal speed of traffic in the right lane (as the right lane is mostly occupied by trucks and they are limited to 100 km/h).
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skt 6:09AM (6/04/2008)
It`s a low cost car. Thats all. I don`t have any pretencys. It`s good for his cost`s.
By www.autoskt.com
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Bill 7:28AM (6/04/2008)
Love to have it here in the U.S.
The smallest diesel engine we'll be getting is still 2 litre.
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Guenther 10:48AM (6/04/2008)
Skoda makes some odd looking cars..
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meme 2:12PM (6/04/2008)
Just one thing to note, for comparison purposes: diesel is ~15% more dense than gasoline and releases correspondingly more CO2. So, it's really equivalent to a 63mpg gasoline car. Still not bad, mind you.
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SWLiP 2:45PM (6/04/2008)
I regularly rent Skoda's Octavia diesel whenever I visit Central Europe, and have been impressed by its fuel efficiency and performance.
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Michael 5:21PM (6/04/2008)
I rode in a Shkoda while I was in Egypt. They're neat cars... I wouldn't mind having one.
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montoym 7:33PM (6/04/2008)
@ meme: According to this article from Edmunds, the TDI's are very close to the Prius in Greenhouse Gas emissions(including CO2)
http://www.edmunds.com/advice/fueleconomy/articles/126370/article.html
Quote from article,
"The champ: Toyota Prius, emitting 0.18 ton of greenhouse gasses
Challengers:
2nd Place: VW Jetta TDI, emitting 0.19 ton greenhouse gasses
3rd Place: Smart Fortwo, emitting 0.22 ton of greenhouse gasses
4th Place: Ford Focus, emitting 0.26 ton of greenhouse gasses"
That's with the older TDI engine as well, which is far less clean than the new one we'll see in '09.
Plus, equating CO2 emissions to mpg's is stupid. To consumers, if they get 73mpg, they will buy less gas than if they get 55mpg. That's what they care about. No matter how you look at it, this car burned "X' gallons of diesel that cost "X" amount of dollars and attained 73mpg while doing so.
Now, had you compared the cost of diesel to the cost of gas and compared the mileage that way, that would make a lot more sense.
For instance, I'll use some rough figures. Fuel where I live according to gasbuddy.com is $3.75/gal for regular, and $4.56/gal for diesel. So, diesel costs 21.6% higher than regular gas.
So, doing some simple math, the 73mpg figure for the diesel is equivalent cost-wise to a 60mpg gas vehicle. That's what consumers care about, how much this car will cost them to use on a daily basis.
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