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Old 05-23-2012, 02:35 PM   #41 (permalink)
NachtRitter
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Helga - '00 Volkswagen Jetta TDI
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Diesel
90 day: 54.39 mpg (US)

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Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf View Post
Two different issues, and let's not argue about metric. Measuring fuel consumption in your inverted "liters per 100 kilometers" fashion just doesn't make sense, and that lack of sense is the same* whether it's quarts per 100 miles, gallons per league, or whatever. If I know that I get 70 mpg, and it's 350 miles to where I want to go, I know instantly the useful fact that I will need at least 5 gallons to get there. Give me that same number in liters/100 km (or gallons/100 miles) and I have to do some math to get a useful answer.


*Then there's the other senseless thing about your l/100 km: that it uses 100 km instead of just 1 km, or 1000 km. Supposedly the point of the metric system is to have units scaling by factors of 1000, yet this breaks that.
A matter of perspective, again. Possibly a more realistic value of 25mpg gives 4g/100mi. So a 350 mile trip is an "easy" 4 * 3.5 = 14gallons. And a 25mpg (or 12.5mpg which is 8g/100mi) is more in the range of Average Joe Public's typical ride.

But I agree when it gets into the 60mpg or 70mpg range, then the g/100mi value is a more difficult one to do simple math on... 1.67 or 1.43?? I personally can't figure out 1.43 * 350 easily in my head... then the MPG value makes more sense.

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