UMTRI: average new vehicle fuel economy in US in August down from July
06 September 2016
The average fuel economy (window-sticker value) of new vehicles sold in the US in August was 25.3 mpg (9.29 l/100km)—down 0.1 mpg from the value for July, according to the latest monthly report from Dr. Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle at University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI).
This decline likely reflects the decreased price of gasoline in August and the consequent increased sales of light trucks, they said. Fuel economy is down 0.5 mpg from the peak reached in August 2014, but still up 5.2 mpg since October 2007 (the first month of the monitoring).
The University of Michigan Eco-Driving Index (EDI)—an index that estimates the average monthly emissions of greenhouse gases generated by an individual US driver—was 0.83 in June 2016, up 0.01 from the value for May 2016 (the lower the value the better). This value indicates that the average new-vehicle driver produced 17% lower emissions in June 2016 than in October 2007, but 5% higher emissions than the record low reached in both August 2014 and August 2015.
The EDI takes into account both vehicle fuel economy and distance driven (the latter relying on data that are published with a two-month lag).
With those stats, the war on Oil imports, GHG and pollution is going backward in 2015 and 2016.
It looks more and more like a major stock market crash in 2017/2018?
Posted by: HarveyD | 07 September 2016 at 06:42 AM
It is silly to round data to the nearest 0.1 MPG and then say that average fuel economy has gone up or down by that much. What would these curves look like if the data were rounded to the nearest 0.01 MPG? Possibly much less dramatic.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 07 September 2016 at 03:55 PM