Mazda has achieved a particularly and increasingly impressive title in the past four years, as in each yearly Light Duty Fuel Economy Trends Report that the US Environmental Protection Agency releases, it has named the Zoom Zoom brand as the most fuel-efficient automaker in the United States.
Well, it seems that Mazda thinks four is a boring number, so it made it into a nice, happy milestone of five.
This year’s report was released on January 12th, and listed Mazda as having the highest overall Manufacturer Adjusted Fuel Economy for the 2016 model year at 29.6 mpg, an increase of 0.4 mpg over the 2015 model year and beating the next-closest company, Hyundai, by 0.8 mpg (one of the largest gaps on the list, although neither Volkswagen or Fiat-Chrysler were included due to ongoing investigations into their emissions).
Although the 2016 model year finished before the new philosophy was adopted, this meshes well with Mazda’s promised vision of “Sustainable Zoom-Zoom,” which includes reducing carbon dioxide emissions by prioritizing efficiency improvements.
This achievement is made even more impressive by the fact that Mazda doesn’t make a single hybrid, whether plug-in or conventional, or an electric vehicle. As the brand continues to increase its efficiency (and fulfill zero-emissions requirements for states like California) through new, promised electrified cars and the new partly-compression-driven SKYACTIV-X engine, it seems likely that that fuel economy number will continue to tick upward (although preliminary 2017 reports suggest that Mazda may face a strong contest for the 2017 model year against Honda for top billing).
News Source: EPA
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