Minorities and fuel-economy standards: Differences in EPA-test vs in-use fuel economy

摘要

A vehicle's in-use or on-the-road fuel economy often differs substantially from the miles-per-gallon estimates developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of its emissions certification program. As a result, the certification values are routinely adjusted by a set of correction factors so that the resulting estimates will better reflect in-use experience. Our analysis investigated how well the correction factors replicated the shortfall experience of all household vehicles on the road in 1985 and of those vehicles held by different population groups. Using data from the Residential Transportation Energy Consumption Survey conducted by the Energy Information Administration of the US Department of Energy, our analysis showed that fleetwide, the shortfall is larger than the EPA correction factors, and that light trucks are experiencing larger shortfalls than automobiles. Controlling for vehicle age and size class, shortfalls did not appear to differ by population group. However, African-American households appeared to select vehicles with systematically lower fuel economy (both EPA-test and on-the-road) within individual vehicle age and size class categories.