It has always been taken that when an air-con is turned on it damages the fuel efficiency however a recent study has suggested that air-cons have a much larger affect on the fuel efficiency of hybrid cars. The report carried out by Emissions Analytics found that when air-cons are on it can drop a hybrid’s around the town MPG by almost 10%. The petrol car however only shows a drop of 3.8 percent when the air con is turned on and a diesel drops by 4.6 percent.
Nick Molden has stated that the report exemplifies what can be called a MPG illusion showing that the "high headline mpg figures" of hybrids can only be achieved if the driving conditions are perfect. He expands on this by stating that when buying a car the customer is looking to buy a car he should look at the real world application of the vehicle and not be taken in by the exciting numbers that can be seen at the time of purchase. He explains that in reality in a situation where a hybrid car is travelling around the town or city on a hot day with the air-con on the hybrid could be using the same amount of fuel as its petrol counterpart and therefore not saving any fuel in comparison.
04 August 2014
