That’s the finding of new research from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in the United States.

The university’s management professor Rick Larrick and Fuqua post-doctoral associate Adrian Camilleri found that showing consumers the cost of gasoline over the approximate lifetime of the vehicle (100,000 miles) encourages consumers to buy less-polluting vehicles.   

‘Giving the gas cost over the lifetime of the vehicle seems to give people a better understanding of its fuel efficiency,’ Larrick said. ‘The current metrics used don’t help people to understand the true value of a fuel-efficient vehicle.’   

Currently in the US, gasoline use is reported in a few different ways on the Environmental Protection Agency vehicle labels that you see when you buy a vehicle: one of them is the number of gallons used per 100 miles, and another is the cost of gasoline over the average annual distance driven (15,000 miles).   

‘Consumers place a lot more weight on fuel efficiency when this information is given to them in terms of gas cost over 100,000 miles,’ Camilleri said. ‘The amazing thing is that this greater weight persists even when the efficient vehicle doesn't necessarily pay for itself in savings, which makes sense for the consumer who also cares about the environment.’    

Larrick said this research shows how an easy change to fuel economy labels could increase the purchase of fuel-efficient vehicles.  

‘Given concerns about the contribution of vehicle emissions to climate change, policymakers should consider which metrics encourage consumers to purchase fuel-efficient vehicles,’ Larrick said. ‘This research identifies one metric that would be useful on fuel economy labels.’