Hi,

"Consumer Reports" has somewhat locked down their web site and offer it for a fee to their subscribers. So these notes will be referencing the paper copies of the January and February issues.

"Report card for Detroit" Consumer Reports, February 2009, Volume 74, No. 2, pp. 15.
We are coming on the three year anniversary of CNW Marketing's "Dust-to-Dust" report. It came out just months before the Hummer H1 line shutdown, which they claimed was 'greener' than the Prius. Furthermore, CNW Marketing claimed the Chevrolet Aveo was a better buy than a Prius, which GM's executive Lutz echoed.

The February 2009 issue of Consumer Reports include "Our Prius hybrid gets plugged in" (pp. 49-50.) They used the "Hymotion L5 conversion kit sold by A123 Systems." Now the curious point is their starting Prius mileage is 42 MPG whereas GH shows a mean of 47.5 MPG and even www.fueleconomy.gov shows 46.4 MPG. So Consumer Reports is starting out well in the lower quadrant of our mileage database:

It is small wonder that their testing shows only 67 MPG with the plug-in conversion whereas others report 100 MPG. They close with:
I am reminded of the "Top Gear" Prius testing with a Formula 1 race car driver on a flat track. This style of driving alternates between maximum accelerator and maximum braking. At maximum acceleration, the engine turns at the fastest RPM with the valves and timing adjusted for power, not efficiency. At maximum braking to the point the ABS is involved, the vehicle energy is converted into heating the brake pads since the battery can not absorb the kinetic energy at that rate. I suspect the Consumer Reports testing spends time in these modes and little regard to warm-up.

This begins to explain the contradictions found in what Consumer Reports wrote in the January 2009, Volume 74, No. 1. Under "Owner satisfaction" (pp. 48-49):
So it is with some confusion that you turn the page to "Family sedans" and find this a glowing write up of the Jetta TDI and every sedan except the Prius:
What I'm trying to understand is how they evaluate and rank vehicles. Looking at their table on pp. 51:It looks like the Consumer Reports ranking of vehicles is:

• HIGH - road test
• LOW - safety, price, MPG (diesel=gas,) reliability
• no impact - vehicle size or space "half a size smaller"

Upon analysis, the sole determinant of ranking is the "road-test." The rest are more commentary than part of the vehicle ranking. In one respect, we're looking at a "Top Gear" evaluation where how the vehicle handles on the road is the only determination. Cost of ownership and other features are not really in the mix.

What may be telling is to include the owner satisfaction scores with the Consumer Reports ranking. This might give a clue as to what their readers consider to be important. I suspect there may be a gap.

Bob Wilson

 

Bob, you hit it on the nose when you "had" to estimate on how Consumer Report arrives at a "score" for a particular vehicle. It sure appears (and this from a CR on-line subscriber) that "test track performace" is the holy grail for CR. It is interesting to note that CR's "First Reports" or "notes" from the CR Reporters frequently reveal "greater" mpg values than what the CR published reports reveal. A sad fact indeed.