[Kia Niro News]

Kia’s new Niro Hybrid set a new Guinness world record for achieving the lowest fuel consumption by a hybrid vehicle on a US coast-to-coast drive from LA to New York.

The trek was accomplished by Wayne Gerdes and co-driver Robert Winger in a stock Kia Niro EX. Spanning 3715.4 miles, the duo’s fuel consumption average was 76.6 mpg (3.07lt/100km) and they only used 4.1 tanks of gas or 48.5 gallons (183.5 liters).

“We’re extremely pleased with the Niro’s record-breaking performance,” said Orth Hedrick, vice president, product planning KMA. “We set out to build a vehicle that offers real-world utility, great looks and fantastic mileage, and setting the Guinness World Record® title confirms our achievement.”

On paper, the official EPA mileage rating for the standard FE model is 52 mpg highway, 49 city, and 50 mpg combined. Kia has not listed the EX model’s fuel economy ratings, but going from 50 mpg to 76.6 is a huge jump. They probably accomplished this by hypermiling whenever possible and driving with any creature comforts like A/C and heat.

No matter how they managed to do it, the new Guinness world record is still a nice bit of press release for the automaker’s new dedicated eco-car platform and hybrid system.

 

[badyellowvette]

That kind of makes me a little more interested, I can hyper-mile when I need to. Now if they keep the price reasonable.

 

[Neuron]

They probably turned off everything like heat to save on gas as much as they can and took routes that didn't require them to brake and start a lot. I'm interested to hear about what they've done to achieve that range and if we could do the same too.

 

[Jay]

Wayne and Bob drove the less fuel-efficient LX trim for the record-breaking run. The LX is EPA-rated 46/51/49. You can read all about the trip on Wayne's CleanMPG.com site.

 

[KiaKrazy]

I really suck at hypermiling to be honest here.. But hey this is a good thing to show he at least was able to achieve that somehow. To hear that he did it in the less fuel efficient trim is even better.