Jun

Gas-Saving Moment of the Day: degree in Gallons Per Mile

Posted by Published in Car Buying

The standard measurement for a car’s fuel efficiency is, as we’re certain you’re well aware, the number of miles traveled on a gallon of fuel. Now, researchers at Duke University have demonstrated some shortcomings of that measurement.

Through a series of experiments, they showed that fuel consumption is not reduced at an even rate as efficiency improves. that means that switching from a car that gets 18 mpg to one that gets 28 mpg will save you much more gas than moving from a 34 mpg vehicle to a 54 mpg one ??? 199 gallons versus 109 gallons, to be exact (you’ll note that these numbers are slightly different from the New York Times blog post, but you can check our math yourself).

The team recommended that government, automakers and consumer publications (whoa, that’s us!) supplement mpg with the metric of gallons per mile by listing vehicles in terms of how many gallons of fuel they use per 10,000

miles. Therefore, a 25 mpg car would become a 400 gallon per 10,000 mile vehicle. A 35 mpg car would use 286 gallons per 10,000 miles. They’ll probably have to think of a way of saying that in less of a mouthful, but you can check out the efficiency chart here.

Although that is more of a long-term goal, the researchers manufacture a great point, which is that even small increases in fuel efficiency can have a major money-saving affect. For instance, swapping a 12 mpg SUV for a 15 mpg ride will save you 167 gallons of gas by 10,000 miles. At $4 per gallon, that’s nearly $700.

The Illusion of Miles Per Gallon (Wheels)

Related:

More Gas-Saving Moments of the Day (KickingTires)

Original post by Stephen Markley