May 9, 2008
The reciprocal is more accurate?
I enjoy doing arithmetic in my head and am modestly good at it. I'm not Rainman, but I'm pretty good. Driving three European friends around in the states, I remember their inquiring about fuel efficiency of the various vehicles they saw. They'd point at a Hummer and I would not only have to guess its mileage (say 10-12 mpg), but I would also have to convert that to liters required to go 100km. That's pretty good therapy if you smack your head on a hybrid or something.
Patrick Bedard in Car And Driver thinks that we should change to gallonage instead of mileage.
If, instead of our customary miles per gallon, we rated fuel economy in gallons consumed over 100 miles of travel, as the Canadians and Europeans do (well, they calculate liters per 100 kilometers), "we wouldn't be having this discussion," German says. If we used a gallonage standard instead of a mileage standard, everyone could see that 11.111 gallons per 100 miles of the pickup is a big deal compared with the 2.222 gallons of the hybrid.
Is that a more intuitive comparison? I am not convinced; it is certainly not worth trading the inculcated understanding of mpg ratings. He offers it in an article concerning the inaccuracy of EPA estimates, implying that somehow "your gallonage may vary" will be more acceptable.
I'm very wary of introducing new things because they are "European." I would like Canadian/European currency (dollar coin, two-dollar coin, smallest bill is a fiver) and I do find a duvet more comfortable than layered overtucked bedsheets. But when people start buying SmartCars, and watching soccer, full-tilt socialism is not far behind.
Hat-tip: Instapundit
The mpg metric is better than the gallonage in that the better ratings have no ceiling or floor. With the gallonage metric, the values can only approach zero. Using 1 gallon to go 100 miles is twice as good as 2 gallons per 100 miles, but the numerical difference is not astounding.
Posted by: pquist at May 9, 2008 10:49 PMMore objectionable would be to change the unit of measure for gasoline sales (and mileage calculation) from English to metric units. Not because I'm an Imperialist slob (which, I am) but because the metric liter (or litre for metric snobs) is to the U.S. gallon what continental haute cuisine is to a Texas Roadhouse steak dinner - cute, miniscule, and wholly unsatisfying.
And selling gas essentially by the quart leads to other frightening things, like a tax rate of $5 per gallon.
QED: Using the metric system makes gasoline cost more.
Posted by: johngalt at May 11, 2008 11:55 AMOui.
Posted by: jk at May 11, 2008 1:19 PM | What do you think? [3]