[Editorial] Audit Hyundai-Kia cars in Korea, too

Posted on : 2012-11-05 15:06 KST Modified on : 2012-11-05 15:06 KST

It is being reported that a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study found major Hyundai-Kia models in that market to have a lower gas mileage than the certified level. In other words, the automaker has been selling cars with overstated mileage. Hyundai-Kia responded to the furor by acknowledging and apologizing for the calculation errors and promising to compensate buyers. Despite the swift response, the huge recall may have a devastating impact on the company image.

Among the cars with overstated gas mileage were most of the 13 top sellers from the twenty 2011-2013 models sold by Hyundai and Kia in North America. The more than 900,000 vehicles sold represent 30% of the automaker’s American sales over the past three years. The EPA has recommended mileage recalculations in the past, but this kind of all-out call for adjustments on more than ten models is apparently unprecedented. The agency decided to test the mileage for all Hyundai-Kia models after complaints from buyers. Sources said that if customers who bought an incorrectly advertised car are paid cash for their travel distances, the amount would be come out to around US$80 million.

Certified mileage is not calculated on the road, but extrapolated from experimental data. Hyundai argued that every country makes estimates using a mock driving mode that simulates a drive in an urban area, and that the error resulted from a failure to input all the correct on-site resistance values affecting mileage during the test. Even if this is true, it is hard to fathom how the mileage could have been off by an average of more than 400 meters per liter.

Since the global financial crisis of 2008, Hyundai-Kia have been riding high in the US, winning customers over with claims of good mileage at reasonable prices. If worse comes to worst and the company becomes associated with misleading mileage claims, it could face a backlash on par with what Toyota saw after its recall. Rather than talking about how it’s become a “target” since claiming a US market share of over 10%, it needs to be working to show exactly what happened here.

Mileage has consistently been a major weakness for South Korean automobiles. It is one of the main reasons that consumers here have opted for foreign cars, and the reason imports have increased so much in recent years is that those cars have small engines with good mileage. As gas prices continue to soar, drivers of Korean cars have often complained of a difference between the certified mileage and the actual mileage. Hyundai-Kia is claiming that their domestic cars should not be an issue, but we would still like to see the authorities take this opportunity to promote trust in the mileage of domestic cars with appropriate testing. This is an area where the car industry needs to be making more efforts at improvement.

 

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