Fuel Efficiency of Cars Fell in ‘90, Group Says

The trend toward great improvement in automobile fuel efficiency was reversed in 1990, for the first time since the mid-1970s, and the average mileage last year was the lowest in five years, an environmental organization reported Tuesday.

And, although some 1991 models may show marginal improvement over their 1990 counterparts, more than 75% of new vehicles studied showed either no improvement or a decline in efficiency from the previous year, according to Public Citizen, which was founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader.

“Without government pressure to improve efficiency, the auto industry is going backwards,” said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook, ex-head of the Federal Highway Safety Administration.

In ranking more than 900 cars, vans and light trucks for the 1991 model year, the study labeled two models of BMW, the German import, as the most inefficient of the new passenger cars on the road--with the exception of a few high-powered vehicles regarded as “specialty” cars.

The BMW 850I and the BMW 750L, the report said, get only 14.12 miles to a gallon, and each will generate more than 72.44 tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.

By comparison, the most efficient model, General Motors’ Geo Metro, gets more than 55 miles to a gallon and will generate only 18.5 tons of carbon dioxide.

The report, the second such issued by Public Citizen, focused on production of carbon dioxide because it is the “greenhouse gas” cited as the chief culprit in what scientists see as potentially catastrophic warming of the Earth’s climate.

Last year, it estimated, passenger cars spewed 709 million tons of it--or 13% of the total U.S. output--into the atmosphere.

The release of the report was timed to support pending legislation that would require passenger car manufacturers to produce a fleet of vehicles averaging 40 miles a gallon by the year 2000.