Australian car consumers are being provided with poor information when it comes to buying environmentally friendly vehicles, the Australia Automobile Association (AAA) has found.
The AAA tested a snapshot of the most popular cars on our roads, testing under real-world conditions rather than what is current practice, in a laboratory.
The results found the average fuel consumption of popular cars was 23 per cent higher than indicated by standard laboratory tests — in some cases up to 59 per cent.
A total of 30 cars were tested, including petrol, diesel, LPG and hybrid vehicles.
Real world factors such as temperature, driver behaviour, road condition and fuel used can impact car performance.
Chief executive of the AAA Michael Bradley refused to name the brands, but said both the Australian environment and Australian motorists were being ripped off.
"Car makers are just optimising the engineering of their vehicle to jump the hurdles they know exist in the lab test," he said.
"The technologies they employ to do that work well in a lab, they just don't translate to how you and I use a car in the real world."
Mr Bradley has called on the Government to provide an immediate answer as to whether it will include real world testing of Australian cars, and said this could be implemented by engineers for as little as $3 per car.
But the environment group Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) was sceptical of the AAA report.
"This is actually a bit of a smokescreen," Gaven McFadzean, a climate change program manager at ACF, said.
"We're concerned the AAA is using this is as a bit of a distraction to stop the introduction of vehicle emission standards currently under review by a Ministerial Forum."
A spokesperson for MP Paul Fletcher said the Government would look closely at the AAA report and assess the merits of real world testing.
