Cast Your Vote for the New EPA Window Sticker

it's an obvious move from EPA to try to favor green vehicles' sales.
most people look at a B or C car and think, "oh, that's not as good as a 'A' car"

They should just make it super complicated and rate the car based on fuel used/per lb hauled/over 20 miles.

or EPA just has nothing better to do, they want more "job security"

Was it just me, or did anyone else try to press the bubble in the picture?

@ autoboy16...

I pressed it! LMAO!

I vote for the Big Bad Letter Grade! Nothing better then going shopping for a family vehicle and having your child give you $hit for buying a vehicle that has a "D" letter grade when you ask him/her to bring better grades in school...LOL!

The proposed idea exemplifies the current administration's over focus on alternative energy and the environment. The administration doesn't understand that a Prius or Civic is not a practical car for a family of 5 or for somebody that hauls, transports, or has a need to go off road.

Sure it would be great if all cars were low on pollution and got great gas mileage, but sometimes an oil services company needs to get parts and people to a field in the middle of nowhere or a family of 4 needs to take a road trip and be able to carry themselves and enough luggage for a week or longer.

Instead of proposing a new system the EPA should work on the current system. Sometimes change isn't good...

I like door #2, as it highlights the graphic info and metrics. The letter grade is too subjective. For instance, this gets a "B" relative to SUVs, but why not encourage buyers to consider the bare metrics when considering which vehicle they need? I say we encourage buyers to understand math, and if they don't, feel the need to wise up.

No. Stick with numbers.

This is all irrelevant. Anyone that buys based solely on the sticker at the dealer's lot should get what they deserve. Most people do a bit of research before setting foot on the car lot. If anything, having industry standard ways of measuring key performance metrics would be helpful (for example, bhp should be measured at the wheels not the crank or flywheel). Using consistent parameters for measurement allows consumers to best evaluate their choices, not some simplified letter grade for the lobotomized potential car buyer.

The one on the right is better. I like the gallons per 100 miles addition, as well. Fuel used per unit distance is more direct as far as determining fuel consumption.

I think they should revamp the testing. Have a bunch of lead-footed auto journalists autocross the car for 500 miles, then let a bunch of right-pedal-averse hyper-milers test it for 500 miles. Take the average for each group, which would give you an upper and lower figure. Then take an overall average. It would certainly be more fun, and we wouldn't have to give our tax dollars to EPA folks to do the testing anymore. I'm sure both the auto journalists and the hyper-milers would do it for free, if they were able to write/blog about the experience.

All kidding aside, what exactly was wrong with the existing stickers that is addressed by these new stickers? Someone at the EPA clearly had way too much time on their hands. Glad we borrowed the money from China to pay them to come up with this...

06scooby says: "They should just make it super complicated and rate the car based on fuel used/per lb hauled/over 20 miles."

Actually, that reduces quite nicely to a measure of efficiency. Pounds per mile is work, volume of fuel has a certain amount of available energy. Work/Energy = unitless number between 0-100% = fuel efficiency. With this, you would know how effectively your vehicle is using its fuel, regardless of its size. Not complicated. I know my furnace is 90% efficient at converting fuel energy into heat, and that concept's not blowing my mind...

give me this: 15mpg city / 25mpg highway AND 18% efficient city / 22% efficient highway. Throw in the 'how this vehicle compares' scale. With those, I can figure out my fuel cost and how effectively I'm using my money for the amount of work I CHOOSE to do. Keep your arbitrary letter grade.

"All kidding aside, what exactly was wrong with the existing stickers that is addressed by these new stickers? Someone at the EPA clearly had way too much time on their hands. Glad we borrowed the money from China to pay them to come up with this..."

Scratch almost any bureaucrat and you will find a smug elitist who is confident that he/she/it knows more than the unwashed masses- and thus knows what is best for those poor unenlightened souls.

I like the letter grades. Contrary to what a few have posted above, all the numbers *are still right there* on the letter-grade version.

In this country, it's been proven that unless people are given a very digestible choice or soundbyte that requires no more than an IQ of 80 to process, they just give up on thinking altogether. Feed the sheeple, save the world.

Grading would be the next step toward taxing a car's emmisions, which is what this greenie-infested EPA wants. Stick with option-B on the right.

I strongly prefer the one on the right. It introduces gallons-per-100 miles, a true consumption unit, and the MPG part focuses on EPA combined, which is the more real-world number that's closer to reality than the "best-case" highway numbers that are always advertised by automakers.

The letter grading is just a "historical snapshot" of what rating the vehicle was able to achieve at the time it was rated. What about in 5 years or in 10 years? A vehicle rated A+ today is not going to maintain that letter grade in the future. Therefore, the grading system is too subjective. In fact the grading system may inherently disadvantage vehicles in the future.

Let me elaborate. Let's say I purchase my first vehicle today with an A- rating of 45mpg and 300 CO2 gases. Let's say in 20 years I get another vehicle that gets 80mpg and 200 CO2 gases. In that much time of technological improvements of cars, that vehicle may only achieve a B- rating since ratings will have to be readjusted, say every 5-10 years. Therefore, a consumer may not consider the future vehicle as an improvement to the environment at all, when in fact it is. This is misleading and shouldn't happen.

In addition, most people might assume the rating is related to how safe the vehicle is to environment as a "whole" (since only small print states that it's really only related to just the greenhouse gases or fuel economy consumption). However, this again will be misleading. For example, hybrid cars are arguably worse for the environment since batteries do not decompose and produce excess waste during production.

Who is to decide what ranges the letter grades are to fall in and how to balance them? What is more important, fuel consumption or greenhouse gases? Why is one car rated B- with 35mpg, but another with a 36mpg gets a B rating? After all, the difference is too immaterial.

Finally, the rating will automatically be A+ for every single electric vehicle since no air pollutants are directly emitted by the vehicle. This does not take into account additional pollutants that are emitted if any fossil fuel power plant is used to create the electricity. Suddenly, it sends the wrong message -- I bought an A+ environmentally compliant vehicle. Therefore, it doesn't pollute the environment - which isn't true.

I just read through all the comments, anc am very happy to see the hating on the letter grade system. The idiots that can't compared 26 mpg to 34 mpg should not be catered to.

Also, I feel like the letter grade system would give all SUVs (for instance) a C. But a Kia Sportage that is getting 31 highway and 26 combine is doing very well compared to the Mitsubishi Lancer (compact sedan) that is only getting 29 highway and 24 combine, the sport age is bigger and heavier and more powerful.

My mpg numbers are from memory btw, don't hold me to them.

Forget the EPA it's all fake. I just did 27.3 MPG on my 2010 WRX and it said I could only get 24!

people how dume they think we are, i mean we know that a V8 CAR will take more gas then a V4 , DAH Stupid gov. you know we voted for those idiots. and cars are invironmental friendly,
No freakin way, still burns gas, does it, ya ya we know ethinol bull!@#$, but its gas, plus i beleive there is no car is environment friendly unless it runs on air PERIOD.
OH i forgot to mention the factories to , well you got the pictures,
Its just another stupid marketing stragety thats all.

It seems the EPA thinks we're to dim witted to compare defined numbers and believes most consumers are impulse car buyers. The lettering system just makes buying a vehicle in particular market segments more ambiguous. It only encourages the consumer to compare different vehicle classes, not individual vehicles within their market segment.