Let’s say you are a leading manufacturer of green cars and yet you feel the official MPG figures just don’t do justice to the environmental credentials of your latest model, just what do you do?
Well if you are Toyota, you send a couple of your employees on a hypermiling challenge. Last week, the dinky iQ set out on a challenge around the UK to try to break its official MPG figure of 65.7mpg on a combined cycle. The official figures suggested a range of 462 miles on a single tank.
Piloted by a team of two of the team plus luggage, the standard iQ2 model with a 1.0-litre VVT-i petrol engine, successfully broke through 500 miles on a single tank of fuel.
Setting out from Brighton the team tagged 18 cities within their allocated two days, on a route that took them as far west as Cardiff and as far north as Wolverhampton. With atrocious weather conditions and rush hour traffic to contend with their chances looked bleak. But in spite of wind, rain, congestion and the need to run the heater, headlights and wipers – all a drain on fuel consumption – the car managed 504.2 miles before ending its journey in central Oxford, working out at an amazing fuel economy figure of 71.6mpg!
To find out more about the iQ’s challenge, visit: www.toyota.co.uk/iqblog.
