SPONSIBLE CHALLENGE #4: HONDA

For anyone following this blog over the past two months, you'll remember how I found myself in a position to either buy or lease a car as the lease on my 2004 Honda Civic was expiring. I had recently attended a screening of Josh Tickell's "Fields of Fuel" and was gung ho to get an auto that ran on biodiesel.

In the end, I opted to lease a new Honda C Hybrid. While in theory the idea of owning a cool early-80's Mercedes converted to run on vegetable oil was appealing, the reality was that I didn't have nearly the time to get and convert the stuff to get back and forth between the San Fernando Valley and Santa Monica every day. Plus, I figure that by leasing a hybrid I would be increasing demand for clean-fuel technology as well as keeping my car's environmental impact low.

While I don't regret having gone the hybrid route, I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't have opted for the wildly popular Toyota Prius instead.

While my Civic is a great car–roomy, modern, comfortable and pretty–it's been very disappointing for its gas mileage. although it's window sticker advertises 40/city and 45/highway, mine is averaging 35.0 mpg (I have a digital mpg readout on the dashboard) and that's primarily by way of highway driving. While I didn't expect to average 42.5 mpg, I fully believed I'd be hovering in the 40 mpg range. This, in contrast from Prius drivers, who rave about the car's over-45 mpg true efficiency rate (it advertises a 51mpg average).

When I spoke with the dealer who leased me the car and told him of my disappointment he assured me that it would take "around 15,000 miles" before the car "adjusted" to my personal driving style and would then suddenly jump up in fuel efficiency. I don't believe it.

So, our fourth Sponsible Challenge goes out to Honda USA for their deceptive claim in which they purport to be greener than they actually are. Sponsible.org is going to be sending Honda a challenge in two parts:

1. To take sponsibility for their false claims and,
2. To either publish the car's true gas mileage moving forward, or make the adjustments necessary to get the Civic Hybrid to meet their claims.

As always, we'll be sure to let you know as soon as we receive any kind of response to our challenge. Here's to hoping Honda takes full sponsibility for their claims and their cars.

-Shawn