Motor vehicle MPG and market shares report. MPG and market share data system, model year 1983

Estimates of final model year 1983 new car and new light truck MPG are provided. ORNL has modified the procedure for calculating new car MPG. The new procedure takes into account the sales mix of engine size, engine type (gasoline or diesel), and transmission type within a nameplate (car line). For example, the new ORNL method takes into account that over 60 percent of the Chevettes in 1983 were the gasoline version (98 CID engine displacement) with a 3-speed automatic transmission. Also, the three diesel model types accounted for only about 1 percent of the Chevette sales. This new method estimated the Chevette MPG for 1983 to be 33.2, nearly 5 MPG lower than the estimate based on the old method. Since this report contains revised new car MPG estimates for every year, the fuel economy estimates in this report are not comparable to those in any previous ORNL report. The estimates of new light truck MPG have not been revised, however.