[///M1]

Originally Posted by jphughan

Are you ready for yet another example of well-intentioned laws being taken advantage of and abused? It's because those vehicles are considered "light trucks", and trucks have less stringent fuel economy standards. That happened because the government didn't want to overtax trucks that were used to support farms, industries, etc -- but of course the industry came to the IRS and basically said, "Sooo....what constitutes a truck?" Well, SUVs are now considered to meet that definition and thus they generally avoid the Gas Guzzler Tax.

Want even more irony? These Gas Guzzler Taxes that were intended and expected to push consumers and manufacturers towards smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles have actually had the OPPOSITE effect. Manufacturers with a given model were faced with the decision of either making it more fuel-efficient (hmm, that could be somewhat difficult) or just making it larger and heavier to move it into the next weight class up where the standards are more lax (hey, that's easy!!), and guess which option they picked.

Well said, I've always shook my head how this whole thing works...

And the EPA testing remains a mystery. the 6-spd F10 M5 is allegedly more economical than the DCT one despite having one gear less, and as a result has a GGT of $1K, vs. $1.3K for the DCT. Go figure.

And recently they re-rated the MPGs on the 328i, and now it has the same rating as the 335i...