Normally when we compare a long-term test car’s economy on either largely urban or motorway routes, it involves switching vehicles with another BusinessCar team member.
However, moving house from inner London to the Chilterns meant I could conduct a truer comparative test for two reasons: firstly, because I – the driver – am a constant, so there isn’t a change of driving styles to consider when looking at the figures; and secondly because the car has only been in my possession, so we’ve been able to collect several weeks’ worth of data.
So then, to the numbers, although it’s worth bearing in mind that the following real-world figures aren’t exclusively urban or extra-urban. For mostly inner-city driving, the 130hp 2.0-litre Ecoflex engine averaged 40.0mpg compared with the official urban figure of 53.3mpg, while almost exclusive M25/M40 motorway commutes of 56.6mpg compares with an official extra-urban of 70.6mpg.
As a percentage of the official stats, the car is performing marginally better on the motorway (75% vs 80%), which is pretty much what we’d expect for any long-term test vehicle.