The “inadvertent error” means GM overestimated the fuel economy of 170,000 2016 Chevy Traverse, GMC Acadia, and Buick Enclave vehicles by about 10%.
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A prospective class-action lawsuit has already been filed, seeking compensation for people who brought crossovers with inaccurate EPA stickers. And besides, it is unlikely that newer cars would have lower fuel economy ratings then the vehicles they are replacing. “That data was not captured in calculations made for EPA fuel economy labels and caused 2016 model-year fuel economy numbers to be overstated by 1-2 miles per gallon for these vehicles”, the automaker said in a statement.
GM told dealers to stop selling the SUVs until new stickers could be printed. The vehicles have been on sale since the fall; through April this year GM has sold more than 82,000 of the large SUVs.
“When Consumer Reports asked General Motors whether the discrepancy extends to earlier models, a GM spokesman responded via email that the company, “…has checked and found no other models or model years were affected”.
The Enclave, Traverse, and Acadia are essentially triplets-all are built on the same platform and share the same powertrain-and the 2016 models are not significant refreshes. GM spokesman Nick Richards said the company continues to work with the EPA on the issue.
The firm handling this suit is McCune Wright, which represented consumers in a suit against Hyundai and Kia over fuel economy misstatements on roughly a dozen models from the two makers.
It’s unclear if GM could face any fines from federal regulators over the error.
If this problem extends to the full breadth of this model generation, it could potentially impact more than 2 million crossovers sold in the US over the past decade.
Compensating owners for not delivering the expected fuel economy could be quite expensive.
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Correct fuel economies for all three of GM’s crossovers are 15 mpg city, 22 mpg highway, and 17 mpg combined for all-wheel drive models, and 15 mpg city, 22 mpg highway, 18 mpg combined for front-wheel drive models.
