Car and Driver: Mileage? No, it's Your Gallonage that Really Counts

2274 Views 4 Replies 5 Participants Last post by Quazar, Jun 30, 2011

cwerdna

Discussion Starter · Jun 30, 2011

Ok, I'm 7 years late posting this...

I was cleaning up my old magazines and found this article.

Mileage? No, it's Your Gallonage that Really Counts - Column - Auto Reviews - Car and Driver

There's a sneaky illusion in mpg numbers. Consider: If your pickup rated at 10 mpg gets only 9, you shrug and say it's off only 1 mpg. But if you drive a hybrid labeled 50 mpg and it drops the same 10 percent to 45, you complain of lousy mileage.

The illusion tricks you once again when you think of mpg instead of the fuel you actually burn. Hybrids are chosen by people who think saving gas is right up there on the list of American virtues with motherhood and voting. But when the hybrid gets 45 mpg instead of the expected 50, a 100-mile trip consumes less than a quarter of a gallon more than expected. Compare that with the pickup that gets 9 mpg instead of 10; its 100-mile trip burns 1.1 extra gallons.

The loss of 10 percent on the pickup's mileage actually burns five times the extra gas used by the 10-percent shortfall in the hybrid...

Just something to keep in mind if you encounter a "big" mileage drop (e.g. a 10% drop from 35 mpg to 31.5 mpg") in the winter...

Since the article was from 04, it was written prior to the addition of 3 more cycles to make make the EPA test harsher. The test changes went into effect starting w/model year 08.

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SilverCruzer

· #2 · Jun 30, 2011

Yes..this is similar to a comment I made in a different MPG post - there are big diminishing returns as you get higher. Someone who buys a new car and upgrades gas mileage from 16 mpg to 20 mpg will have a MUCH bigger boost to saving money that someone who upgrades from 26 mpg to 30 mpg. In Europe, the flip the equation to make it more constant. Its not kilometers to liter, but liter to kilometer.

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catmmmowns

· #3 · Jun 30, 2011

SilverCruzer said:
Yes..this is similar to a comment I made in a different MPG post - there are big diminishing returns as you get higher. Someone who buys a new car and upgrades gas mileage from 16 mpg to 20 mpg will have a MUCH bigger boost to saving money that someone who upgrades from 26 mpg to 30 mpg. In Europe, the flip the equation to make it more constant. Its not kilometers to liter, but liter to kilometer.

yeah, I went from getting about 16 mpg on my old car to consistently getting 24 mpg on my cruze. (I'm a city driver 90%) of the time. about $50 worth of gas gets at least 300 miles on my cruze as opposed barely 200 on my old car.

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70AARCUDA

· #4 · Jun 30, 2011

SilverCruzer said:
In Europe, they flip the equation to make it more constant. Its not kilometers to liter, but liter to kilometer.

...yep, they do the samething with a vacuum tube parameter: in USA and England, vacuum tube transconductance is measured in amperes-per-volt, but elsewhere in Europe it's Siemens and measured as volts-per-ampere...but it's exactly the same thing!

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Quazar

· #5 · Jun 30, 2011

I like the MPG rating over the Miles/100 system. I think it keeps automotive companies more honest. I think if auto companies were allowed they would use gallons per 1000 miles, because the larger the number, the smaller the apparent variance and the less important it seems.

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