Senator sets sights on cheating car companies

Independent South Australian senator Nick Xenophon has stepped into the #Dieselgate fray with the planned introduction of a private members bill into Federal parliament aimed at compensating customers caught short by misleading fuel efficiency claims. The bill will be tabled in October.

Under Xenophon’s proposed legislation, car-makers with actual fuel consumption outside the claimed figure by 10 per cent or more would be liable for penalties of up to $50 million.

Other proposals encompassed by the bill are:
>> Change the current standard to reflect ‘typical road use and driving’ rather than the unrealistic lab conditions used by some car makers
>> Require car-makers to compensate car owners where there’s a material difference (greater than 10 per cent) in claimed fuel consumption performance

All this is over and above the furore surrounding Volkswagen’s fiddled emissions figures for its diesel-engined vehicles and embraces general emissions and fuel consumption figures in their entirety, including petrol engines.

Senator Xenophon’s legislative push comes from the revelation in a newspaper report that real-world fuel consumption in some cases is as much as 133 per cent higher than the figures quoted by manufacturers.

In an interview on ABC News, Senator Xenophon said: “That is a huge discrepancy and that's why we need to tighten up both consumer law but also emission standards and consumption figures so that consumers actually know what's going on."

The move is backed up by the consumer group Choice, which is pushing for independent testing to replace the current system in which car-makers submit their own, in-house figures.

Senator Xenophon claimed car-makers use tactics such as “taking out the back seats to make the car lighter” and switching off air-conditioning to maximise fuel economy claims.

“Testing for fuel economy can be difficult, but the gaps between what is advertised and what is actually achieved on the road really does stretch the credibility gap… Motorists have been treated like mugs for too long. A family could typically be many hundreds of dollars a year worse off from what they budgeted for because they’ve been misled into buying a particular car.”

In Australia, as is the case in Europe, passenger car and SUV/LCV fuel economy is measured against set ‘duty cycles’ on a rolling road. The figures are often some way distant than real world economy, although in motoring.com.au’s experience diesel vehicles are much more likely to match the gazetted L/100km figures.

Senator Xenophon has suggested the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI), launched in 2009 as a partnership between the United Nations Environment Program and energy and transport bodies, could be used as a benchmark for the new standard.

Choice is also pushing for minimum performance standards for emissions and fuel consumption, citing Australia as the only developed country that doesn’t do so.