Halfapenguin.com
carcritic

According to wired, the EPA has decided to rework milleage ratings, and very surprisingly there has been huge change on the hybrids, and far less on the conventional cars. This has been reasoned on the "Idling" part of the tests that were "excessively" long. I know i happen to have lived in 2 of the most congested cities in the western hemisphere, but isn't what cars do in cities mostly idling? My understanding was that one of the selling points of a hybrid car is that when you aren't moving, an electric motor keeps the engine going but no petrol is wasted...

Now i don't doubt that mileage ratings are always going to be slightly dodgy, but this seems to be a deliberatly lobbied attempt to attack hybrid cars. Admitedly the manufacturers should be dropping the prices more, and working towards improving the technology.

There were reports a couple of years back that by suplimenting the battery capacity of the Prius, you could be approaching 80-90 mpg fuel efficency, but that was probably in part due to the correct driving technique of the owner who did the modifications.

Hybrid cars aren't the answer, but they are a step in the right direction, the EPA has done nobody but the conventional car industry a favour. I may be being cynical here, but why develop a test that appears targetted to damage the performance of Hybrid cars...