Consumer Reports Says Ford Overstating Some New Model MPG

Consumer Reports Tests show Ford Fusion, C-Max hybrids don't live up to 47-mpg claims

Yonkers, NY December 7, 2012; Consumer Reports said that Ford has been making some eye-opening claims about the fuel economy of the redesigned 2013 Fusion Hybrid sedan and new C-Max Hybrid wagon: "47 city/47 highway/47 combined mpg." After running both vehicles through Consumer Reports real-world tests, CR’s engineers have gotten very good results. But they are far below Ford's ambitious triple-47 figures.

In Consumer Reports tests, the Fusion Hybrid delivered 39 mpg overall and 35 and 41 in city and highway conditions, respectively. For the C-Max Hybrid, we got 37 mpg overall, with 35 and 38 for city and highway. These two vehicles have the largest discrepancy between our overall-mpg results and the estimates published by the EPA that we've seen among any current models

EPA fuel-economy estimates are the result of testing on a dynamometer. It's worth noting that automakers mostly self-certify their cars. Then, the EPA spot-checks about 15 percent of them with its own tests in a lab. We have reported our fuel-economy results to the EPA.

Consumer Reports said that they not alone in these findings. Some Fusion Hybrid and C-Max Hybrid owners have reported fuel economy below the EPA estimates and other media outlets have experienced a similar shortfall.

Make & model	CR overall mpg	EPA combined mpg	Difference
Ford C-Max SE	37	47	10
Ford Fusion Hybrid SE	39	47	8
Toyota Prius C Two	43	50	7
Toyota Prius	44	50	6
Honda Civic Hybrid	40	44	4
Infiniti M35h	25	29	4
Lexus ES 300h	36	40	4
Buick LaCrosse (4-cyl., eAssist)	26	29	3
Honda Insight EX	38	41	3
Hyundai Sonata Hybrid	33	36	3
Lexus RX 450h	26	29	3
Lexus CT 200h	40	42	2
Toyota Camry Hybrid XLE	38	40	2
Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid	19	20	1
Toyota Highlander Hybrid	27	28	1
Toyota Prius V Three	41	42	1
Chevrolet Malibu Eco	29	29	0
Honda CR-Z EX (manual)	35	34	-1

The complete details of the tests are available HERE.