Re: "...power plants can be fitted with scrubbers much more easily than moving vehicles."
You're right that modern cars are better, but the other commenter is also right that car companies tweak their cars to game the tests, which are always done the same way and therefore easy to defeat.
One of my favorite examples is the "shift skip" feature on Corvettes, which locks out 2nd and 3rd gears under light acceleration, forcing a 1-4 upshift. This artificially inflates the EPA fuel economy numbers, since the tests involve only very light acceleration. In daily driving owners accelerate faster, which turns off the shift skip.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
