The official city/highway numbers are 7.6 / 6.9 L/100 km for the Hybrid, 10.9 / 7.8 for the V6 AWD, and 10.5 / 7.6 for the V6 FWD, although as with any current Transport Canada ratings, you can expect your real-world consumption to be somewhat higher. My best result in mostly urban driving was about 12.5 L/100 km, which is roughly 25 percent better than I managed last year in the JX35.
Sure its a small sample size but how the heck can TC numbers be so incredibly, wildly off?
I'm not expecting them to be perfect numbers but Ln( 12.5 / 7.6 ) = 50% difference.
I think it largely has to to with how many short-hop drives you make, and how well the engine manages fuel consumption when stone cold.
TC's city cycle is a 31 minute drive covering 17.8 km with 23 stops. The engine is only cold for about the first five minutes of this.
But if you actually LIVE in the city, rather than just drive through it, then a typical drive sees you running round trips of 3 to 5 km and under 15 minutes, often with a stop in the middle (to attend the school concert, or purchase the groceries) so the car is essentially running cold the whole time.
Keep an eye on your instant economy readout next time you're driving with the car stone cold, and you'll likely find that it's up around 18 L/100km for the first couple of km -- it just kills your economy.
Still, some cars are better than others at maintaining efficiency when cold. Generally speaking, smaller engines have a double advantage because not only are they more inherently economical to start with, but they also tend to warm up more quickly simply because there's less mass of cold metal there.
In the meantime, TC is expanding its testing regime for 2015 models to include three additional driving cycles: "hard acceleration/fast driving", "highway drive with air conditioning," and "cold weather city drive." The latter lowers the ambient temperature to -7 Celcius, but it's still a half-hour steady run in the city. I'd love to see them add a "short-hop" cycle that runs the car from stone cold for 3.5 km, lets it cool for 45 minutes, then runs a further 5 km, lets it cool for three hours, then another 4 km, cool for 1.5 hours, then 3.5 km home, all in stop-and-go conditions with the outside temperature at 4 degrees Celcius and the air pregnant with pelting cold rain. I bet my real-world economy would then fall right in line with the official ratings.
