Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Tele man
since, there are many low-MPG vehicles and relatively few high-MPG vehicles, more progress (benefit) arises from small improvements to the many vehicles, ie: the benefit of the multitude over the benefit of the few.
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Even if there were more high mpg vehicles than low mpg vehicles, a slight improvement in the Elantra will result in a little less gas burned for every 100 miles traveled. A slight improvement in the Suburban will result in a lot less gas burned per 100 miles traveled. Say Bob gets 40 mpg in his Elantra. That's 2.5 gallons burned for every 100 miles he drives. Move heaven and earth to get his car up to 45 mpg and now he's burning 2.2 gallins for the same trip. Joe gets 12 mpg in his Suburban, burning 8.3 gallons as he follows Joe. If they get that Suburban up to 14 mpg, he's "only" going to burn 7.2 gallons for the trip. Now a 5 mpg jump in the Elantra saves us 0.3 gallons while a 2 mpg gain for the Suburban saves us 1.1 gallons. If I rounded the Suburban's gain a smidgen the other way, you'd need 4 Elantras on the road for every Suburban to get the same overall benefit. We don't have that kind of ratio, and anyway I don't think Hyundai left 5 easy mpg lying around. GM could find 2 if they bothered to look.
ecomodded- When y'all Canucks phrase the speed limit in "minutes per 100 km" to match your l/100 km then maybe we'll think about changing our mpg and mph.