When U.S. regulators announced new fuel economy rules back in 2011, they predicted that automakers would achieve overall Corporate Average Fuel Economy of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.
That’s not going to happen, regulators say in a new report, but federal agencies are still praising the industry for meeting and even exceeding the tough new fuel economy requirements.
The EPA and the Department of Transportation now say that the average CAFE mpg for cars in the U.S. will be between 50 and 52.6 miles per gallon by 2025, unless gas prices go back up.
The Corporate Average Fuel Economy program, which is run by both agencies, aims to improve the fuel efficiency of America’s passenger vehicles.
Related: Coolest cars for $18,000
The industry will miss the original target for 2025 because the new rules are somewhat flexible. There are different fuel economy goals for SUVs as opposed to cars, and with lower gas prices, consumers are buying a lot more SUVs, pulling down the average.
Consumers shouldn’t expect to get such good gas mileage in real life, though.
Related: Seven super tiny SUVs
The fuel economy estimates used for CAFE regulations are different from the numbers seen on the window stickers at dealers. The fuel economy numbers typically seen on window stickers and on the EPA’s FuelEconomy.gov web site have been adjusted to more closely reflect what drivers see in real life.
CAFE fuel economy numbers are used only for regulatory purposes, and are usually about 20% higher than those more realistic numbers. So a CAFE fuel economy figure of 52.6 mpg figure translates to about 42 mpg on the road.