Real-World vs Official Fuel Consumption Data

Discover how much fuel vehicles actually use, not just what manufacturers claim. Compare and export real-world consumption against official NEDC/WLTP figures across 9,894 vehicle variants.

The dataset contains thousands of combustion and hybrid engine variants with manufacturer-declared values, real-world MPG where available, normalized l/100km conversions, and the calculated percentage gap between official and real-world consumption.

What this Actor is useful for

• Automotive marketplaces and comparison tools
• Fuel-cost and total-cost-of-ownership calculators
• Fleet analysis and procurement tooling
• Automotive journalism and research
• Enriching internal vehicle datasets with real-world consumption estimates

Coverage

Current dataset snapshot:

• 54 vehicle brands
• 1,012 model generations
• 9,894 engine variants
• 7,222 variants with real-world MPG
• 8,414 variants with NEDC values
• 2,652 variants with WLTP values

Coverage is strongest for European and UK-market petrol, diesel, hybrid, mild-hybrid, and plug-in hybrid specifications, many of which are also relevant in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. It is not intended as a US- or Canadian-market-specific fuel-economy database, VIN decoder, EV consumption API, or complete new-car database.

Input

The Actor supports five operations:

• search - free-text search, e.g. volkswagen golf 1.4 tsi 150 dsg
• lookup - filter by brand/model/engine/fuel/year
• brand - export records for one brand
• export - filtered dataset export
• stats - summary statistics

Example input:

{
  "operation": "search",
  "searchQuery": "volkswagen golf 1.4 tsi 150 dsg",
  "hasRealConsumptionOnly": true,
  "officialStandard": "prefer-wltp",
  "outputUnits": "both",
  "maxResults": 25
}

Brand export example:

{
  "operation": "brand",
  "brandName": "Volkswagen",
  "hasRealConsumptionOnly": true,
  "maxResults": 1000
}

Filtered export example:

{
  "operation": "export",
  "fuelTypes": ["diesel"],
  "yearFrom": 2015,
  "yearTo": 2020,
  "minDeviationPct": 20,
  "sortBy": "deviation",
  "sortOrder": "desc",
  "maxResults": 500
}

Output

Each dataset item represents one engine variant:

{
  "recordType": "vehicle-consumption",
  "brand": "Volkswagen",
  "brandSlug": "volkswagen",
  "model": "Golf",
  "modelYears": "2012 - 2020",
  "engine": "1.4 TSI 150 DSG",
  "fuelType": "petrol",
  "selectedOfficialStandard": "NEDC",
  "officialMpgNedc": 59.5,
  "officialMpgWltp": null,
  "selectedOfficialMpg": 59.5,
  "realMpgAvg": 44.2,
  "officialConsumptionL100km": 4.75,
  "realConsumptionL100km": 6.39,
  "realVsOfficialConsumptionDeviationPct": 34.5,
  "dataQuality": {
    "hasRealConsumption": true,
    "hasWltp": false,
    "hasNedc": true,
    "hasDisplacement": true,
    "flags": ["missing-wltp"]
  }
}

The key-value store entry OUTPUT contains a run summary with total matched and returned records.

Important interpretation notes

• MPG values are UK MPG.
• l/100km is derived with 282.481 / UK MPG.
• selectedOfficialStandard identifies whether the derived official l/100km value used WLTP or NEDC.
• realVsOfficialConsumptionDeviationPct is based on l/100km, so positive means real-world consumption is worse than the official figure.
• Source percentage fields are preserved as realVsOfficialMpgPct when MPG output is enabled. That value is MPG-based and therefore has the opposite intuition: lower percentages mean worse real-world fuel economy.
• Plug-in hybrid records can have very high official MPG due to test-cycle behavior. Use quality flags when comparing PHEVs with conventional vehicles.

Recommended monetization

Use Apify pay-per-event pricing on default dataset items. The Actor is CPU-light and deterministic, so per-result pricing is predictable for users.

Suggested initial pricing:

• Small per-run/start charge, if desired
• Approximately $2–$3 per 1,000 returned records
• Include platform usage in the price for simpler buyer expectations

Limitations

• Mostly European and UK-market coverage.
• Sparse EV and hydrogen coverage.
• Sparse US- and Canadian-market-specific coverage.
• Not a VIN decoder.
• Not a substitute for official regulatory databases.
• Real-world consumption varies by driving style, condition, weather, tires, load, and terrain.