"New Mileage Stickers Include Greenhouse Gas Data"

"WASHINGTON — The federal government unveiled new fuel economy window stickers on Wednesday, for vehicles starting with the 2013 model year, that for the first time include estimated annual fuel costs and the vehicle’s overall environmental impact.

The new labels, which replace a five-year-old design that provided only basic information about estimated fuel economy, represent the broadest overhaul in the sticker program’s 35-year history. There will be different labels for conventional vehicles, plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles, with cars running solely on battery power estimated to get 99 miles per gallon.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation, which are jointly responsible for the window sticker program, rejected a radically different design that would have prominently displayed a letter grade from A to D comparing a given vehicle’s fuel economy and air pollution to those of the entire fleet of new cars.

Automakers objected to that sticker as simplistic and potentially misleading. The government instead adopted a much busier label with more information and a sliding scale comparing vehicles across classes."

John M. Broder reports for the New York Times May 25, 2011.