4 ms·

Even more confusingly, what the US calls a gallon isn't the same as what other countries call the gallon. It's about a 20% difference.

VulgarExigency 4y ago
Not that confusing, only the US measures fuel in gallons, isn't it? Everyone else just uses liters.
- grosun 4y ago
  The UK may be the most confusing; fuel is sold in litres, but fuel efficiency is expressed in MPG, and furthermore the gallons aren't the same as US gallons. I guess at least the miles are the same!
  - spacebanana7 4y ago
    I suspect the British fuel system is designed to hide the cost per mile of driving, at least tacitly. At present it's difficult to work out without some external tool.
    - masklinn 4y ago
      An other possibility is that the brits like having wonky things, just look at the pre-decimalisation monetary system, or the counties (https://youtu.be/hCc0OsyMbQk https://youtu.be/hCc0OsyMbQk).
    - xnorswap 4y ago
      We only switched to selling by the litre in the early 90s (presumably for the sake of EU alignment), it was sold in Gallons until then. Expressing efficiency in MPG is just something that had "stuck" by then.
      - lil_cain 4y ago
        UK was legally obliged to by the EU. See the "metric martyrs" for how weirdly controversial this all was.
        onion2k 4y ago
        Not quite. The EU directive said that governments should if they wanted pass a law to say metric units should be displayed. The UK government chose to ratify that law, but with the caveat that imperial units could be displayed as well if shops wanted to display them (and most did). At no point was it ever illegal do display the old units. There were no martyrs; there were only idiots.
    - OJFord 4y ago
      It's more like once it's established it's hard to change - if you started listing 'miles per litre' that would be like it was 'designed to hide the cost of driving', because I would have no idea how that compared. (Quite normally for my age in the UK I think, I'm familiar with both metric & Imperial measurements, but generally fairly bad at converting. Except I know 568ml = 1 (UK! Not US!) pint - for which I can thank my alma mater Imperial and its student bars: Metric, and FiveSixEight. I could probably guess effectively at lbs and kg from butter/flour. Of course I know 2.54cm = 1". A yard is 'a bit' less than 1m. It's the bigger ones that seem more obscure/are harder to work out from familiarity I suppose.)
      - nordsieck 4y ago
        > It's more like once it's established it's hard to change - if you started listing 'miles per litre' that would be like it was 'designed to hide the cost of driving', because I would have no idea how that compared. 1. I think with liters, people typically reverse the relationship so it's liters/100km. Which is a much more intuitive unit. 2. If you're buying gas in liters, I think it'd be a lot easier to switch over to using liters for efficiency. You may not be able to compare easily to other vehicles, but you'd be able to estimate your personal fuel more easily.
        rootusrootus 4y ago
        > a much more intuitive unit I think it's the other way around. Distance per quantity of fuel is the intuitive measurement that humans understand and can relate directly to how much fuel they purchase. It could be argued that it is less intuitive when comparing two cars, however. Although better MPG is still strictly better, which is about the level of detail most non-nerds care about.
  - masklinn 4y ago
    > I guess at least the miles are the same! Only since the 1958 International Yard and Pound Agreement tho. Before then the US used what is now known as the Survey Mile, which is why the survey mile exists (and survived until this year).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- Aromasin 4y ago
  The UK also does for some God awful reason (especially infuriating considering it's sold by the litre at the petrol station). In the United States and some other countries, a gallon is equal to 128 fluid ounces or 3.785 liters. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries, a gallon is equal to 160 fluid ounces or 4.546 liters.
  - masklinn 4y ago
    In fairness the fluid ounces are also different, an Imperial (english) fluid ounce is 28.41306mL, while a US Customary fl oz is 29.5735mL. So the Imperial floz is 96% the US customary, not enough to account for having 25% more of them in a gallon, but it does lead to the Imperial gallon only being 20% larger than the customary gallon. But wait there’s more! The US also has the “food labelling” fluid ounce which is not the customary one, instead it’s exactly 30mL.
    - hutzlibu 4y ago
      And yet we claim to live in a science based society. I mean, there are a million things, that do not need universal standards, but standards are imposed anyway. But where one standard would be really helpful, like scientific values, we have many. And some people would rather go to prison, than adopt. (I think that happened in the UK, after they force switched to metric)
      - Retric 4y ago
        Keep digging and all the imperial standards are just an arbitrary conversion from metric at this point. 1 ft = exactly 30.48 cm; One pound is exactly 0.45359237 kilograms as in 0.453592370000000000… kilograms.
      - mharig 4y ago
        Not only they might go to prison, they may risk values and lives of others, too: https://usma.org/unit-mixups https://usma.org/unit-mixups
- frankfrankfrank 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - tom_ 4y ago
    We already pretty much did it for measuring time, and very helpful it has proven too. So why not other dimensions as well? There'll be plenty of diversity left, trust me.
  - Maken 4y ago
    Clam down, we are just talking about how measure systems. And the previous ones existed not because of cultural differences, but because every king and tyrant wanted to decide which stick their vassals should use to measure the world.
  - onion2k 4y ago
    Ah yes, the endless march to turn humanity into a singular blob of consistent units of nature, under a banner of the opposite. The entire world uses metric units apart from America, Libya and Myanmar. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-that-use-imperial https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries... What I absolutely love about this fact is that America is still using British Imperial units. After literally having a war over whether or not the US should be independent of British rule, you're still holding on to our measuring system despite the rest of the world moving on.
    - saalweachter 4y ago
      They aren't British Imperial units. They're US customary units. They were standardized separately, and vary slightly to considerably from the British Imperial counterparts.

VulgarExigency 4y ago

Not that confusing, only the US measures fuel in gallons, isn't it? Everyone else just uses liters.

grosun 4y ago
The UK may be the most confusing; fuel is sold in litres, but fuel efficiency is expressed in MPG, and furthermore the gallons aren't the same as US gallons. I guess at least the miles are the same!
- spacebanana7 4y ago
  I suspect the British fuel system is designed to hide the cost per mile of driving, at least tacitly. At present it's difficult to work out without some external tool.
  - masklinn 4y ago
    An other possibility is that the brits like having wonky things, just look at the pre-decimalisation monetary system, or the counties (https://youtu.be/hCc0OsyMbQk https://youtu.be/hCc0OsyMbQk).
  - xnorswap 4y ago
    We only switched to selling by the litre in the early 90s (presumably for the sake of EU alignment), it was sold in Gallons until then. Expressing efficiency in MPG is just something that had "stuck" by then.
    - lil_cain 4y ago
      UK was legally obliged to by the EU. See the "metric martyrs" for how weirdly controversial this all was.
      - onion2k 4y ago
        Not quite. The EU directive said that governments should if they wanted pass a law to say metric units should be displayed. The UK government chose to ratify that law, but with the caveat that imperial units could be displayed as well if shops wanted to display them (and most did). At no point was it ever illegal do display the old units. There were no martyrs; there were only idiots.
  - OJFord 4y ago
    It's more like once it's established it's hard to change - if you started listing 'miles per litre' that would be like it was 'designed to hide the cost of driving', because I would have no idea how that compared. (Quite normally for my age in the UK I think, I'm familiar with both metric & Imperial measurements, but generally fairly bad at converting. Except I know 568ml = 1 (UK! Not US!) pint - for which I can thank my alma mater Imperial and its student bars: Metric, and FiveSixEight. I could probably guess effectively at lbs and kg from butter/flour. Of course I know 2.54cm = 1". A yard is 'a bit' less than 1m. It's the bigger ones that seem more obscure/are harder to work out from familiarity I suppose.)
    - nordsieck 4y ago
      > It's more like once it's established it's hard to change - if you started listing 'miles per litre' that would be like it was 'designed to hide the cost of driving', because I would have no idea how that compared. 1. I think with liters, people typically reverse the relationship so it's liters/100km. Which is a much more intuitive unit. 2. If you're buying gas in liters, I think it'd be a lot easier to switch over to using liters for efficiency. You may not be able to compare easily to other vehicles, but you'd be able to estimate your personal fuel more easily.
      - rootusrootus 4y ago
        > a much more intuitive unit I think it's the other way around. Distance per quantity of fuel is the intuitive measurement that humans understand and can relate directly to how much fuel they purchase. It could be argued that it is less intuitive when comparing two cars, however. Although better MPG is still strictly better, which is about the level of detail most non-nerds care about.
- masklinn 4y ago
  > I guess at least the miles are the same! Only since the 1958 International Yard and Pound Agreement tho. Before then the US used what is now known as the Survey Mile, which is why the survey mile exists (and survived until this year).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Aromasin 4y ago
The UK also does for some God awful reason (especially infuriating considering it's sold by the litre at the petrol station). In the United States and some other countries, a gallon is equal to 128 fluid ounces or 3.785 liters. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries, a gallon is equal to 160 fluid ounces or 4.546 liters.
- masklinn 4y ago
  In fairness the fluid ounces are also different, an Imperial (english) fluid ounce is 28.41306mL, while a US Customary fl oz is 29.5735mL. So the Imperial floz is 96% the US customary, not enough to account for having 25% more of them in a gallon, but it does lead to the Imperial gallon only being 20% larger than the customary gallon. But wait there’s more! The US also has the “food labelling” fluid ounce which is not the customary one, instead it’s exactly 30mL.
  - hutzlibu 4y ago
    And yet we claim to live in a science based society. I mean, there are a million things, that do not need universal standards, but standards are imposed anyway. But where one standard would be really helpful, like scientific values, we have many. And some people would rather go to prison, than adopt. (I think that happened in the UK, after they force switched to metric)
    - Retric 4y ago
      Keep digging and all the imperial standards are just an arbitrary conversion from metric at this point. 1 ft = exactly 30.48 cm; One pound is exactly 0.45359237 kilograms as in 0.453592370000000000… kilograms.
    - mharig 4y ago
      Not only they might go to prison, they may risk values and lives of others, too: https://usma.org/unit-mixups https://usma.org/unit-mixups
frankfrankfrank 4y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tom_ 4y ago
  We already pretty much did it for measuring time, and very helpful it has proven too. So why not other dimensions as well? There'll be plenty of diversity left, trust me.
- Maken 4y ago
  Clam down, we are just talking about how measure systems. And the previous ones existed not because of cultural differences, but because every king and tyrant wanted to decide which stick their vassals should use to measure the world.
- onion2k 4y ago
  Ah yes, the endless march to turn humanity into a singular blob of consistent units of nature, under a banner of the opposite. The entire world uses metric units apart from America, Libya and Myanmar. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-that-use-imperial https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries... What I absolutely love about this fact is that America is still using British Imperial units. After literally having a war over whether or not the US should be independent of British rule, you're still holding on to our measuring system despite the rest of the world moving on.
  - saalweachter 4y ago
    They aren't British Imperial units. They're US customary units. They were standardized separately, and vary slightly to considerably from the British Imperial counterparts.