New Car Dealer Stickers Deployed

For a while now we have been hearing about how the estimated MPG standards were going to be changed to be more accurate and fairly drastically alter the MPG value given on car windows. Well it’s been done and the new stickers are making their ways onto cars.

Autoblog reports that in addition to the MPG changes, the sticker is also required to now include the NHTSA crash-test results as well. Manufacturers are also required to have side-curtain airbags in 1/2 their cars now and all their cars by 2009, making everything on the road a little safer.

Interestingly enough, the MPG impact for cars is pretty steep, especially for hybrids that have historically reported 50+ MPG, but drivers were rarely ever seeing that actual number.

The new testing methods are estimated to make the following impacts, lowering the current advertised MPG as follows:

• 8% lower MPG highway
• 12% lower MPG city
• HYBRID: 20% lower MPG all around

Ouch. Well at least the numbers are becoming more honest. My hope is that in order to not loose the marketing advantage of those big MPG numbers, car manufacturers will update the technology in their cars (maybe simple tweaks would do it?) in order to actually achieve the MPG they have been reporting this entire time… making the 60+ MPG Prius a bit more of a reality for everyone.