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Gack... one of my pet peeves: 90% of my friends compare car millage in terms of "how much money I spend to refuel", completely ignoring: 1. Significantly diffe

Gack... one of my pet peeves: 90% of my friends compare car millage in terms of "how much money I spend to refuel", completely ignoring: 1. Significantly different tank sizes - 53L to 70L on regular cars. 2. Different prices of gas (suburbs vs downtown, 87 vs 91 octane, etc) 3. Different habits - some refuel at 1/3 left, 1/4 left, 50km left, yellow light on, needle at the end of the gauge, etc It drives me absolutely bonkers banana berserk, but... nothing I've been able to do so far :-/

bombcar 5y ago
It's not scientific at all, but for most people gas mileage comes down to "how often do I have to go to the gas station". Which is why once electric cars passed a certain point they become effectively infinite mileage as far as people are concerned (as they never have to think about charging as it's always charged overnight). Similar for how for most people there are only two speeds of computers - I have to wait for it vs I don't have to wait for it.
Closi 5y ago
I hate to tell you this but 90% of your friends are silly, all mine talk about miles per gallon.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  >>I hate to tell you this but 90% of your friends are silly, Quoted out of context like that, that's probably the best compliment on living life right that I've had in a long time! :->
NikolaeVarius 5y ago
I have never heard of anyone judging fuel cost outside of miles/kilometers per gallon/liters. Where the hell do you live
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  Hmm, slightly different measurement. They're not talking about "sticker price of fuel at the gas station", so not "fuel cost". Rather, if you ask them casually in an informal setting "Does your car get good milleage", they'll say things like "Yeah, it only costs me $50 to fill it up!" or my personal favourite, "Yeah, I only have to fill it once per week" --> the amount of unspoken variables in that one just boggles the mind, but goes to another commenter's point of "practical perspective". "How often I need to fill it up" is probably a sane, pragmatical way to think of milleage. It may in fact cut to the point faster than saying "it does 11L / 100km", because while it answers some questions in abstract, it doesn't actually answer the practical considerations of how often I need to refuel / how far can I get on a tank. As mentioned in my another reply, for me at least, it hasn't been a factor of where I live but variety of company I keep -- on average I'd say my Comsci/Sci-major friends don't do it. But I'm currently in Canada, where we do indeed as per stereotype, measure distance in units of time ("How far is your work?" "About 20 minutes" ComSciMajor response: "GAAACK!")
LaserToy 5y ago
I kind of agree. The only thing that matters for me is a cost of ownership in $$$ over some period of time.
hydrogtehd 5y ago
You might have poor friends who have cash flow problems. When I was a kid my parents wouldn’t fill up the tank, they’d put L20 000 in it ($15). About half way up. They couldn’t afford more. For people like this, how much the car costs per stop is important. Especially if a re-fueling typically occurs after the next pay period.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
... It's fascinating reading the comments here and other places that go between "that's crazy never heard of it couldn't imagine you're making it up" and "yup seen it / do it too" :-D But basically for many of my non-science-major friends, it's money per tank or at best kilometers per refueling. Re another (for some reason dead?) comment, there may indeed be a correlation between cash flow and tendency to use "money per tank", haven't thought about it that extensively. And then whether education is a confounding or causal variable to either of those axis, it gets complex. Location wise: Toronto Canada, Winnipeg Canada, and Fairmont Minnesota is where I've observed it, FWIW.
- Tarsul 5y ago
  he, this reminds me of a recent interview with Daniel Kahneman (of behavioral science nobel fame) where he closes with saying he works on the "how the inability to solve the famous “bat and ball problem” [bat and ball cost 1,10 together, the bat costs 1 dollar more than the ball, how much do they cost each?] correlates with belief in God and that 9/11 was a conspiracy." https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/may/16/daniel-kahneman-clearly-ai-is-going-to-win-how-people-are-going-to-adjust-is-a-fascinating-problem-thinking-fast-and-slow https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/may/16/daniel-kahnema...
kolinko 5y ago
amazing… I literally never heard of anyone using that metric. Everyone I’ve ever known uses liters/100km…

bombcar 5y ago

It's not scientific at all, but for most people gas mileage comes down to "how often do I have to go to the gas station". Which is why once electric cars passed a certain point they become effectively infinite mileage as far as people are concerned (as they never have to think about charging as it's always charged overnight). Similar for how for most people there are only two speeds of computers - I have to wait for it vs I don't have to wait for it.

Closi 5y ago

I hate to tell you this but 90% of your friends are silly, all mine talk about miles per gallon.

NikolaNovak 5y ago
>>I hate to tell you this but 90% of your friends are silly, Quoted out of context like that, that's probably the best compliment on living life right that I've had in a long time! :->

NikolaeVarius 5y ago

I have never heard of anyone judging fuel cost outside of miles/kilometers per gallon/liters. Where the hell do you live

NikolaNovak 5y ago
Hmm, slightly different measurement. They're not talking about "sticker price of fuel at the gas station", so not "fuel cost". Rather, if you ask them casually in an informal setting "Does your car get good milleage", they'll say things like "Yeah, it only costs me $50 to fill it up!" or my personal favourite, "Yeah, I only have to fill it once per week" --> the amount of unspoken variables in that one just boggles the mind, but goes to another commenter's point of "practical perspective". "How often I need to fill it up" is probably a sane, pragmatical way to think of milleage. It may in fact cut to the point faster than saying "it does 11L / 100km", because while it answers some questions in abstract, it doesn't actually answer the practical considerations of how often I need to refuel / how far can I get on a tank. As mentioned in my another reply, for me at least, it hasn't been a factor of where I live but variety of company I keep -- on average I'd say my Comsci/Sci-major friends don't do it. But I'm currently in Canada, where we do indeed as per stereotype, measure distance in units of time ("How far is your work?" "About 20 minutes" ComSciMajor response: "GAAACK!")

LaserToy 5y ago

I kind of agree. The only thing that matters for me is a cost of ownership in $$$ over some period of time.

hydrogtehd 5y ago

You might have poor friends who have cash flow problems. When I was a kid my parents wouldn’t fill up the tank, they’d put L20 000 in it ($15). About half way up. They couldn’t afford more. For people like this, how much the car costs per stop is important. Especially if a re-fueling typically occurs after the next pay period.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

... It's fascinating reading the comments here and other places that go between "that's crazy never heard of it couldn't imagine you're making it up" and "yup seen it / do it too" :-D But basically for many of my non-science-major friends, it's money per tank or at best kilometers per refueling. Re another (for some reason dead?) comment, there may indeed be a correlation between cash flow and tendency to use "money per tank", haven't thought about it that extensively. And then whether education is a confounding or causal variable to either of those axis, it gets complex. Location wise: Toronto Canada, Winnipeg Canada, and Fairmont Minnesota is where I've observed it, FWIW.

Tarsul 5y ago
he, this reminds me of a recent interview with Daniel Kahneman (of behavioral science nobel fame) where he closes with saying he works on the "how the inability to solve the famous “bat and ball problem” [bat and ball cost 1,10 together, the bat costs 1 dollar more than the ball, how much do they cost each?] correlates with belief in God and that 9/11 was a conspiracy." https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/may/16/daniel-kahneman-clearly-ai-is-going-to-win-how-people-are-going-to-adjust-is-a-fascinating-problem-thinking-fast-and-slow https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/may/16/daniel-kahnema...

kolinko 5y ago

amazing… I literally never heard of anyone using that metric. Everyone I’ve ever known uses liters/100km…