MPG!! Why not litres per 100 Miles??!!

[isobars]

Surely, surely, that's an easier calculation!!

 

[cinek]

I would put it down to familiarisation, as to what people are used to.
Personally, I do prefer litres / 100km, but that's me.

 

[GP801]

Its odd. I think in km for distance, Kg for weight but always think in mpg for fuel consumption. Guess its just what I was dragged up with.

 

[tacho d]

I agree, its simply something we are used to, and easier to make comparisons. The higher the figure, the bigger the sense of satisfaction, the bigger the smile. There must be a formula to convert mpg to litres / 100km useful when I go to Greece or anywhere in Europe and I try to describe the performance of my CLk to my reletives. As I failed my maths a-level I put the challenge to mu more capable nephews. No reply yet. Any ideas?

 

[Giantvanman]

l I put the challenge to mu

Was than intentional mathematics pun where mu is μ?

 

[Dieselman]

There must be a formula to convert mpg to litres / 100km useful when I go to Greece or anywhere in Europe and I try to describe the performance of my CLk to my reletives.

282.48/mpg = L-100Km.

 

[isobars]

As a lad with only a simple grasp of maths, am I right in thinking that it only needs one basic division calculation - 100 mile units into the number of litres, the lower the better!

 

[Dieselman]

Why don't we use miles per litre, no calculation needed then.
400 miles, 60 litres of fuel = 6.6 miles per litre.
600 miles, 60 litres of fuel = 10 miles per litre.

l/100km| mpg (imp)| mpl |mpg (Us)
3| 94.2 |20.7 |78.2

3.5 |80.7 |17.7 |67.0

4 |70.6| 15.5| 58.6

4.5| 62.8| 13.8 |52.1

5 |56.5 |12.4 |46.9

5.5| 51.4| 11.3 |42.6

6 |47.1 |10.3 |39.1

6.5| 43.5 |9.6| 36.1

7 |40.4 |8.9| 33.5

7.5| 37.7| 8.3 |31.3

8 |35.3| 7.8| 29.3

I didn't bother going above 8 litres/100Km as no-one buys cars that use more than that...

 

[RWDpetrol]

I didn't bother going above 8 litres/100Km as no-one buys cars that use more than that...

Mine uses about 18 litres per 100km.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Why don't we use miles per litre, no calculation needed then.
400 miles, 60 litres of fuel = 6.6 miles per litre.
600 miles, 60 litres of fuel = 10 miles per litre.

l/100km| mpg (imp)| mpl |mpg (Us)
3| 94.2 |20.7 |78.2

3.5 |80.7 |17.7 |67.0

4 |70.6| 15.5| 58.6

4.5| 62.8| 13.8 |52.1

5 |56.5 |12.4 |46.9

5.5| 51.4| 11.3 |42.6

6 |47.1 |10.3 |39.1

6.5| 43.5 |9.6| 36.1

7 |40.4 |8.9| 33.5

7.5| 37.7| 8.3 |31.3

8 |35.3| 7.8| 29.3

I didn't bother going above 8 litres/100Km as no-one buys cars that use more than that...

Only the daft ones

 

[Dieselman]

Mine uses about 18 litres per 100km.

I know...

 

[Dieselman]

If you look at my chart you can see the least fuel used is 3L/100km.

For the German ?? motorshow, VW announced they would be taking a new 3 litre car along. BMW had kittens and rushed out a pre-production car that wasn't at all ready.

VW turned up with...

 

[isobars]

I just filled up my 280, M110, and it's not too good around town. 15 litres to 100 km. What's that in old money?

 

[isobars]

Ah, half of 37.7! Not as bad as I thought, mind you, it's bloody dear in Europe!!

 

[Dieselman]

~18.75 mpg

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Remember the 3 litre Lupo?

Volkswagen Lupo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[isobars]

You'd probably need all the money saved on fuel to wine and dine all the girls you'd pull in that. Fighting them off with a stick, I'd imagine!

 

[JethroUK]

Even weirder is ages old
Why describe Miles Per Gallon when we can no longer buy "gallons" of fuel, we have to buy "litres"

Then even bigger descrepancy is why describe MPG at all when the type of fuel is so diverse eg petrol is now far far far cheaper than diesel - this wasnt a factor when MPG was invented but now its huuuuuuuuuge factor thats completely ignored in this calculation

"Cost per Mile" would better reflect fuel compsumtion in a way that can be compared vehicle to vehicle

Even though fuel cost can vary it could be aggregated over 1, 5 or even 10 years and provided every manufacturer uses same price the primary question will be answered e.g. is this car cheaper/dearer to run than that car?

Secondary question "whats the absolute cost to run this car" will still be there or there abouts and as accurate as anyone ever needs bearing in mind they would need a calculator to factor in servicing/taxing etc etc if they wanted anything more accurate

"Price per mile" is also intuative information language that anybody could use/adopt very quickly whether they are 17 with the brains of a toad or 65 with 40 years of "mpg" drummed in

So "Price per mile" is optimum calculation to compare like with like, absolute running cost and *intuative* information that anyone will understand

 

[baxlin]

Even weirder is ages old Why describe Miles Per Gallon when we can no longer buy "gallons" of fuel, we have to buy "litres"

I think with this statement, you have defeated many arguments made earlier in various posts, as while you are correct, in that we do not buy fuel in gallons, in UK neither do we measure road distances in Kilometres!

So as he often does, and much, I understand, to the annoyance of many (!), Dieselman put his finger on it once again - why not use miles per litre?

It ticks all the boxes: we buy in litres, our speedos and all our road signs are in MILES per hour, and we think in distance when driving, not fuel used. What I mean is, we think "how far to go" not "how much fuel to get there", so 'litres per 100kms' isn't a natural way of thinking.

There is also of course, the satisfaction factor, the higher the figure, the better we feel (apart from the masochists among us.......)

Regarding cost per mile, yes, OK, that would be an ideal comparison, but to do that meaningfully, there are so many other factors, for instance, my insurance is say £300, but for the same car, someone else's might be £1,000 or more, my VED is £20 this year (was zero in year one), but a petrol version might be over £200. Don't let's even go there with depreciation, or paying 132.9p per litre (how do they measure 0.9p???) for diesel in one area, against 139.9p in another?

So a real comparison has so many variables that we come back to actual fuel usage, and being the age I am, MPG is fine for me, I just multiply litres bought by 0.22 to convert to Imperial (for clarity for our friends across the pond) gallons. Malcolm

 

[markjay]

Even weirder is ages old
Why describe Miles Per Gallon when we can no longer buy "gallons" of fuel, we have to buy "litres"

Then even bigger descrepancy is why describe MPG at all when the type of fuel is so diverse eg petrol is now far far far cheaper than diesel - this wasnt a factor when MPG was invented but now its huuuuuuuuuge factor thats completely ignored in this calculation

"Cost per Mile" would better reflect fuel compsumtion in a way that can be compared vehicle to vehicle

Even though fuel cost can vary it could be aggregated over 1, 5 or even 10 years and provided every manufacturer uses same price the primary question will be answered e.g. is this car cheaper/dearer to run than that car?

Secondary question "whats the absolute cost to run this car" will still be there or there abouts and as accurate as anyone ever needs bearing in mind they would need a calculator to factor in servicing/taxing etc etc if they wanted anything more accurate

"Price per mile" is also intuative information language that anybody could use/adopt very quickly whether they are 17 with the brains of a toad or 65 with 40 years of "mpg" drummed in

So "Price per mile" is optimum calculation to compare like with like, absolute running cost and *intuative* information that anyone will understand

At current, manufacturers' mpg figures are comparative only, ie they can used to compare fuel consumption between two models of cars, but not in order to be able to accurately predict the mpg a car will deliver in real life.

What you are suggesting - price per mile with cost of fuel averaged over the past 10 years - will be no different because the cost you will arrive at will not be the real cost today, and again this figure will only be comparative between models but not very helpful when trying to predict actual running costs today or tomorrow.

Further more, due to local variations in currency, fuel duty and VAT, and fuel prices in general, manufacturers will be required to publish different sets of figures for each country around the globe, and in some cases for each region within the country, making comparisons even harder.

So not sure there is anything wrong with the current mpg system - at least the conversion from the European Litre per 100km is straightforward.