The ADAC wanted to find out how precisely the on-board computers actually measure and display the average fuel consumption. That’s why 80 different vehicles were compared, including diesel, petrol, electric cars and even two natural gas models.
The data was collected during Ecotest measurements on the dynamometer, in which variables such as driving profile, temperature or air resistance were always the same. The result is surprising:
Only 25 of the 80 cars tested provided values that are exact to the decimal point, i.e. deviate by a maximum of two percent. Another 22 are still accurate enough, with a deviation of up to five percent – that corresponds to about 0.3 liters. The remaining vehicles showed even greater fluctuations, sometimes even up to 25 percent.
