London-to-Edinburgh smart fortwo ad not misleading
Click above for a high-res gallery of the smart fortwo
Recently, Daimler hyped up the smart fortwo's high-mpg ability by claiming in a television ad that you can go from London to Edinburgh, a distance of over 400 miles, on one tank of petrol fuel. This caused some - well, five - complaints that the ad was full of it. The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA, whose website features a big "How to complain" button) investigated and decided that the ad's claim that, "on one tiny 33 litre tank, a smart car can do 433 miles," was not misleading. Mercedes said that the smart fortwo 71 bhp petrol coup used in the ad was capable of "73 mpg [Imperial] at an average speed of around 40 mph." So, you might be able to make the drive, but not very fast.
While on the ASA site, I found these other recent decisions: "There is probably no God" bus ads are OK and cookies are not a health food.
Gallery: 2008 smart fortwo
[Source: Daimler]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ronEbear 4:13PM (2/09/2009)
WOW! 40 mph eh? How wonderfully dangerous to be driving a that speed on highways. How misleadingly delicious!
Reply
drsilverworm 4:22PM (2/09/2009)
w00t for the atheist ads!
Reply
John 6:19PM (2/09/2009)
who said it was on the highway? there are other routes to get from place to place you know ;) and actually life at 40mph i find is much better then 70+ hell 15mph on a bike is just great :D
Reply
paulwesterberg 6:36PM (2/09/2009)
The Google says:
Driving directions to Edinburgh, UK
404 mi – about 7 hours 13 mins
Given the figures above you should be able to drive 530 miles. My guess is that range like this is only achievable via extreme hypermiling. If you only manage 55mpg you will not make it, any road anomaly, gravel, snow, hills, going faster than 40mph will cause your mpg to fall.
Driving at 40mph will take you 10 hours to get there, roughly 3 extra hours of extreme boredom, unless someone going 80mph cant change lanes fast enough and crashes into you.
I think that ASA should make them prove it.
Make with the metric conversion already(USA & UK)!
Reply
leo 5:47AM (2/10/2009)
Agree with you on metrification...about blooming time, so much easier!!! crazy crazy imperical/american units aarrrrgghhhh!!!!! I really wish ABG would quote fuel cosumption in L/100 km in addition to mpg. That would be great.
texmln 10:30PM (2/09/2009)
Wow, what exciting news. Unfortunately, I can do the same thing in my Suburban, taking five more people than the Smart did plus all of their luggage for a week's stay - and drive 80mph the whole way.
You would have to drive four Smart cars just to get seven people there plus, perhaps one or two more to get the luggage there. Let's call it five to be safe. It would take you twice as long to arrive. How is that more efficient?
Reply
Chris M 11:27PM (2/09/2009)
Well, if you are taking 6 people and lots of luggage on a trip, then a Suburban would be more efficient than 3 Smart Fortwos (but a Highlander Hybrid would be even more efficient and less expensive than the Suburban) .
But honestly, how often does that happen? Not everyone has a large family, a couple that packed light would do just fine with one Fortwo which would be a lot more efficient for 1 or 2 than a hulking Suburban.
Brn 11:17AM (2/10/2009)
Of course it's misleading. The intention of the ad was to lead the viewer to believe that if they made that trip, they'd consume no more than a single tank of gas. Under most circumstances, it's incorrect. Just because MB has one scenario where it isn't, doesn't make it not misleading.
At the same time, most ads are misleading so I don't know why this particular pile of bs got singled out.
Reply
sco 2:50PM (7/11/2009)
excellent car, new one does 90mpg diesel.
its a merc and the little engine sounds like a porsche 911 when you give it the beans.
thanks
Reply