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When we talk about a car’s fuel economy, what we want to know is how much fuel does it use, not how far does it go I've never understood this phenomenon. I re
by typicalrunt 14y ago
When we talk about a car’s fuel economy, what we want to know is how much fuel does it use, not how far does it go
I've never understood this phenomenon. I realize he's talking about car economy here, but for me a car is a vehicle to take me from point A to point B, which means my most important metric is how far it goes, not how much fuel it consumes. Once I'm home and can (or want to) run calculations on my costs, then I'd like to know how much fuel it consumes.
- izak30 14y agoIt's a misnomer, sometimes you want one, and sometimes you want the other, so knowing a ratio, any ratio, and 8th grade algebra, you'll be fine. This is a silly post.
- raldi 14y agoRight. Sometimes, you want to know how much beer you can get for a fixed amount of money, and sometimes you want to know how much money you have to pay for a fixed amount of beer.
- jkrasnay 14y agoI think that's his point. Usually you know how far you want to go and the question is, how much gas will it take. For example, I know my car gets 8 L/100km. If I want to go 400kms, I can quickly figure out that's 32L, or about 2/3s of my 48L tank. Doing this calculation with mpg requires division.
- jlarocco 14y agoI don't see the big deal. If I know my car gets 40 miles per gallons and I need to go 120 miles, I can quickly figure out that I'll need 3 gallons of fuel. I can't imagine either measurement being hard to use for anybody who's made it to high school. They're two ways of measuring the exact same thing and neither one has an advantage over the other. Although it would be nice if we used kilometers per liters instead.
- sopooneo 14y agoEquivalent unit systems absolutely can have advantages over one another for particular contexts. I don't know which of these systems is most convenient (and most immediately useful) for most people, but I find it reasonable that there would be an objective winner by that measure.
- overcyn 14y agoI wager you don't know many people who have only made it to high school then.
- thezilch 14y agoUh, how exactly are you saved from division (and multiplication) on 8L / 100km = xL / 400km? As opposed to just division on 25mi / 1gal = 250mi / xgal...
- asdfaoeu 14y agoThe division in the first will always be x / 100km while in the second the division will be x divided by your mpg ratio. The first division is way easier as your mpg ratio is more likely to be something random.
- ranit8 14y ago>from point A to point B So you know exactly how far you need to go, now calculate how much fuel you need. You can always buy extra fuel and refill on the way on very long travels where "how far it goes" would matter. Unless you're driving an electric car, for those autonomy is important, but it depends on battery size, not just efficiency.