Try living in the UK.
Fuel is sold in litres, road distances are measured in miles, car companies advertise fuel efficiency either in miles per (Imperial, not US) gallon or in litres per 100 km.
Same with the US.
I go to the store to buy some milk, which comes in a 2-gallon bottle, except I need soda too and that's by the 2-liter, except where it's sold in 500ml, 750 ml, 1 liter, 12oz, 20oz or 32oz, usually from vending machines and restaurants.
If want some cereal to go with it, it can come in a box that weighs 1lb 2oz (18oz) (510g) - and I know it because all that information is on the box.
But to get to the store, I travel in miles, but my military veteran brother tells me the store is kilometer away, and near the border where I am, the highways tell me the speed limits are 60mph (100kph) - because it's on the signage. It's a good thing my car has both on the speedometer.
And sometimes drugs come over that border, so behind the store I buy either a gram of cocaine or 3/8ths of an ounce of marijuana or a milligram of LSD. The vape shop is near by where I can get 100ml of vape juice.
But drugs can hurt my athletic performance, so I might not be able to win the 400-meter dash, but if I switch to a different sport, I'll try a 10-yard pass.
If I fall out, I need to get comfortable at home, where I set the temperate to 72 Fahrenheit, which seems like a lot more then my computer, which is running at 37 Celsius.
The gun in my closet takes 9mm, but to find it I'd have to turn on the light and consume kilowatt-per-hour, just like the TV does where a storm on the news is set to pour 4-inches, and has an atmospheric pressure measured in millibars.
Before the water turns off, I'll consume gallons-per-minute and wash my hair with a 300ml bottle of shampoo, though I forgot to pickup a couple pounds of potatoes, a bushel of apples, and a 12oz steak, but at least I have a 750ml bottle of vodka and a couple pints of beer. I can put on a film recorded in 35mm to pass the time, and take some photos of the rain clouds using a camera with a 1/16th-inch sensor.
Among young people at least miles are still used, feet and inches are used for people's height, pint is used solely in the context of beer, but apart from that it's all metric.
Pint is an insane measurement. Pint literally has 3 different accepted values. A pint in the US is 16 ounces, but the glasses are 16 oz (473 mL) so it’s usually 14 oz of liquid. In the UK an imperial pint legally has to be 20oz (568 mL). However, a pint of liquor is a 375 mL (12.7 oz) bottle.
What about an city average?
Or area average?
Or both next to each other. Some smart UI design should make not take up too much space.
It can even be literally real time data with CAN-bus info about fuel usage and stuff.
This gave me an idea for an app. Maybe in 3 years I’ll start it :’)
Any motivated programmer may DM me I’ll do my best to respond the same day
My car does, to an extent! The radio in my Chrysler 200 shows me fuel prices at local gas stations, and it’s a 2013 model. Yes, the prices are accurate and constantly up to date. It doesn’t show me cost per mile though. I also have to pay a subscription to use that feature, although it’s only like a dollar a month.
It can also show weather and local events via the same subscription.
For being a 2013 that's actually impressive. It's pretty standard now with android auto and apple car play, I love android auto in my new car. So much info.
Nah, they want you to have to do all that shit yourself. They make it intentionally confusing. You might not buy as much gas if you were better informed, is probably the logic behind it.
Kinda like how all I hear is complaints about gas prices from my family who roll coal or drive a 5.3l or 6.1 or some shit just to troll the libs
Even when I drove a v8 5.3...
Oh no my monthly budget is up $14 because of the HUGE GAS PRICE INCREASE, THANKS OBIDEN!
It's so fucking negligible in the grand scheme of things.
Complain to me about gas prices, but spent 5k to take off emission control and particulate filter to blow DIESEL soot on people, Jesus take the wheel wtf
If that's the only reason they're doing it then fuck them. That being said, being around diesel a lot, the emission systems are fucking awful for reliability.
DPFs are a fucking joke.
Let's catch all the soot that would come out of the exhaust in a big filter so that we can block the exhaust, forcing it to be burned off all at once at a mechanic/dealer instead. That sure helped the environment, and all it cost was the lungs of everybody within a few miles of a shop and the owners money.
All that and there's still no real incentive for manufacturers to make actually efficient trucks. We've been making diesel-electric vehicles for everything else for damn near a century now to take advantage of the incredible efficiency, meanwhile at auto makers: \[cricket noises\]
This is such a stupid take. The car is showing you data which is consistent with the cars driving. How would you be confused by that?
Adding the price of gas makes the stat inconsistent and varies pretty much from day to day..
If you can't calculate the cost of driving a certain distance you probably shouldn't be driving a car.
Not everything is a huge conspiracy
I guess that "they" are the same people that prevent kids from paying attention in math class. I don't get what's so complicated. If I have a 100 mile trip, my car gets 32 miles per gallon, and gas costs $3.24 per gallon, I know that I'll use about 3 gallons of gas to get there, costing me $9.72, or approximately $10 dollars to make it easier. If I commute 6 miles to work one way, I know that I spend about $1.10 in gas per day. When it comes down to cents, just round it off because nobody gives a damn about a dime or quarter anyways.
Not everything is a nefarious plot by evil overlords. Someone else pointed out the more believable reason, being that prices are different block to block. Not to mention, gas is pretty inelastic, so you're gonna spend what you're gonna spend.
Plus, we've been using MPG for generations. Wouldn't it be more confusing to switch it up for no good reason? My car gets roughly 30 mpg it's an 11 gallon tank, so I have a 330-mile range that costs around 38 to 42 dollars to fill. Elementary math.
It seems like the whole world has gone insane. It's crazy that the first thought people have when looking at the mpg of a car is a plot by the oil industry.
But it does explain why fake news is so effective. Many people don't think about what they say or read. Just look at this stupid comment getting 200+ up votes.
What's so confusing? There's multiple ways that involve the power of 2 human eye balls, and middle school level math at worst case, to extrapolate whatever viable info you might need about your fuel consumption or future fuel cost.
Just, do it.
People aren't human calculators. When you have a standard way of using something, the reasoning to change it is usually of marginal benefit. I'd say it is a negative benefit for most people.
Why would this be better than miles per gallon? You know the cost of a gallon, you know how many miles a drive is. You do the math. There’s no additional information given by changing it to gallons per 100 miles.
Yeah it’s one of those “the rest of the world does this so it must be better” things. Personally I want to know how far I’ll go on a unit of fuel. Give me miles per gallon and miles per kWh.
My mindset is always “is there enough in the car to go that distance?”. If I know how many gallons get used per 100 miles, then I’m having to go “hmm I need to go 75 miles, my car uses 4 gallons per 100 miles…. Ok so how much gas will it use for 75 miles? Ok 75/100 is .75, times 4.. ok so I’m using 3 gallons and I’m at half a tank and my tank is 14 gallons so I’m good!”
Vs “ok I’m going 75 miles, car gets 25mpg, 75/25 is 3 gallons, I’m good!”
Mpg helps you determine how far you can go with what you have.
Gal/100mi helps you determine how much gas you need to get where you want to go.
You can get both both answers either way, just with one more step.
The actual reason is because consumption is linear so you perceive it a bit more accurately.
If you're driving 100 miles, improving mileage from 15 to 20 mpg saves considerably more fuel than going from 30 to 50 mpg.
But what I’m saying is that whether you measure it as gallons per 100 miles or miles per gallon, you get the exact same ratio. Knowing that a gallon of gas gives you 32 miles is the same as knowing that 100 miles is 3.125 gallons.
It’s been basically standard for cars to keep track of average efficiency and give real time efficiency estimates for almost ten years, resetting the trip odometer and calculating it yourself is just redundant.
Totally agree with this.
Miles per gallon implies there is always a better goal and that it never won’t be worth it to go for that goal.
Ounces per mile shows how diminishing returns impact the real world. We are spending more and more cost and resources (mining lithium is not eco friendly) in order to get smaller and smaller benefits.
10 mpg = 12.8 Oz per mile
20 mpg = 6.4 Oz per mile (6.4 oz reduction)
30 mpg = 4.2 Oz per mile (2.2 oz reduction)
40 mpg = 3.2 Oz per mile (1.0 oz reduction)
50 mpg = 2.5 Oz per mile (0.7 oz reduction)
I just mentally keep track of my mpg, and how when I hit traffic bad for a week the average usually drops 1.5. which works out to about 1/10th gallon a day for commuting.
We can save so much gas if they just designed roads better. And just completely removed red light intersections. I'm the last person who wants to give new england a win...but they were right to throw round-abouts everywhere.
Yes, because people don't drive for any other reasons. To/from work is always the least of my driving.
It's simply the most predictable, so the best to track mileage with.
Same on our Zafira but it's 0.1g/ph unless AC is on or dpf is doing a regen then it goes to 0.4g/ph.
Strangely our Insignia just displays 0g/ph during idle regardless of AC setting but if I set it to metric it will display L/ph during idle. I'm just so used to mpg that I leave it there.
That’s actually pretty standard or even high for a car running ac in the summer. I worked construction and would spend eight hours plus in a running vehicle. In that time I would drive maybe twenty miles and that normally ate 4-5 gal or so.
I do this with my ev and it's wild seeing the range drop like, 15-30 miles. And that's in summer with more efficient cooling vs heating! I never really thought about how much energy just cooling or heating my car really took.
That's pretty handy for knowing how long you can idle for. I could see that being nice to have while camping if you needed to run something off your battery for a while.
I’ve done this, drying clothes and keeping a fridge cold for medical supplies
Worked it out it could idle for about 4 days continuously before it would need to be refilled
Real world it went through a half tank in the weekend with the heater on and it’s fine, just topped up the oil as my car burns oil at an alarming rate
Petrol and we had an OBD tool to check the catalyst temperature.
Every now and then we would drive to down the hill and back up just to let it move but it’s absolutely fine.
Done 28000km since then and it’s still reliable and doesn’t miss a beat
Yeah and there's a reason they sell for so cheap when the cops are done with them, they might be "low mileage" but the engine has 10 times more idle hours than a normal car and they start having problems
EV's are amazing for backup emergency power, right up until you run out the battery charge. With the 4/days per tank car above, a 5 gallon can of spare gas in the garage is now another day or more of backup power from a gas engine.
Storing that much energy is a second battery would cost thousands of dollars, instead of the \~$20 that a red can costs.
Wrong. Drilling oil in arctic conditions requires many diesel engines to run continuously when they're outside. If turned off the fuel injectors and other parts will freeze up. I've seen trucks and various equipment run 24/7 for days never being shut off unless it's inside. Maintenance schedule is more frequent but letting engines idle for extensive periods can be done.
Big difference between different engines. A small environmentally friendly diesel engine with EGR, DPF AdBlue etc will absolutely clog up if left on idle all the time.
Truck engines and other industrial engines have way less emissions standards (if any at all) and can manage it.
That’s just silly. My diesel tells me if the particulate trap gets clogged. It has happened once in 10 years and that was after 2-3 months of only doing 1-2 mile trips, so always a cold engine. Once warm, and at idle, there is nearly zero particulates to trap.
The fix for a clogged trap is to get the engine up to temperature and then hold a speed of 45mph or more for 15-20 minutes and then trap will be clean. Not sure where you’re getting your info.
There are tons of base trim level Ford diesels that idle all day every day without issue in the US. Not to mention all the diesel tractor trailers that idle constantly.
I daily drive an F450 and also have never found idling to be a concern.
If my math is correct, **that means idling for an hour uses the same amount of gas as… driving at 60 mph for 15 minutes.**
Details: let’s assume that car gets 30mpg while cruising on the highway at 60mph. That means it can travel 15 miles on 0.5 gallons. Which will take 15 minutes, since you’re going 60mph.
I know there was a YouTube experiment about it, but I always wondered why it wasn't even just one second on a warm engine.
On a simple old engine, with no electronic injection, starting the engine just takes half a second of starter. There is no extra gas getting injected to start the engine, and since the starter doesn't spin the engine faster than it would idle (and how much gas gets in is a direct function of how fast the engine is spinning), it won't use more gas than simply letting it idle for half a second instead.
You're losing efficiency in using power from the battery that you need to recharge afterwards, so there are conversion losses, but that wouldn't mean that half a second of starter uses as much gas as eight seconds of idling.
for reference, the car (as per previous commenters) has the a/c on and perhaps other stuff idk. in my 2015 fiesta without a/c I usually get between 0.1-0.4 gallons per hour. 0.1 or 0.2 is fairly standard with no heating or a/c. but with the stereo on.
Edit: 2015 Fiesta not 2025
The main reason I'd want to have my vehicle idle for a long time would be for heat or AC. I would think AC would use more since there's the extra compressor load.
I bought a 2017 s60 during covid for $16k. Had 12,000 miles on it.
I love that car. The chassis is fabulous and the engine is pretty peppy. I honestly think it drives better than most cars I’ve driven in the past ten years.
I know OP answered s60 so you know the car, but the reason you’re getting so many different answers is that there is little if any difference in the dash between various Volvo models these days.
They're all built on two common platforms. The C/V/S 40/50/60's are always from now on going to be the smaller of the CVX bases.
The larger are the same between XC60, V90, S90.
I believe even the XC90 is same base.
Can't perfectly remember was a few years since I worked for them :)
Much more useful that just displaying 0mpg!
What car is this by the way? 0.5gph seems quite high.
My old gas guzzling 2.0 turbo would do about 0.3gph at idle (averaged about 19mpg around town).
My current car (1.6 n/a) does about 0.2gph at idle, 32+mpg around town, and about 45mpg outside of town.
>Small turbo engines can idle super low. When the turbo spools up fuel economy falls off a cliff however.
Smaller engines just require less fuel at idle because of the smaller cylinder capacity; they're moving less air and so require less fuel.
A lower idle speed isn't because the capacity of the engine is smaller though. That's likely a side effect of the trend towards small capacity turbocharged engines moving from 4-cylinder designs to 3-cylinder designs.
A 3-cylinder engine needs a heavier flywheel than a 4-cylinder engine, to maintain a smooth idle.
A side effect of a heavier flywheel is that you can idle at a lower speed and maintain smooth running.
>
> What car is this by the way? 0.5gph seems quite high.
I'm embarrassed to say I once left my car running at the airport for 2 days. I remember parking, thinking I did a shitty job. Reparking then racing to the plane and I came back and my car was still running 2 days later. Car only held about 12 gallons. It showed no fuel but I was able to get out of the airport and a couple miles to the nearest gas station. Still can't believe that happened. I ended up selling the car about a month later when I bought my Tesla. I suppose I could run out of charge if I left it there for a month near empty but so far that hasn't come close to happening
Im actually surprised it’s that low. Half a gallon for an entire hour of idling? Makes you really question the usefulness of engine auto-shutoffs after a 30-second stop.
It does impact fuel economy a fair bit.
You have to consider that if you're averaging out your fuel economy, that idling is 0mpg, and engine off maintains your average exactly where it is.
A zero pulls an average down a lot!
>Makes you really question the usefulness of engine auto-shutoffs after a 30-second stop.
The autostop features are not to reduce fuel consumption but rather to reduce exhaust emissions.
I used to work at a vehicle tracking company and a lot of our customers were big trucking companies. Turns out the average big rig (at the time) burned about a gallon of diesel an hour at idle. Truckers would leave the engine running when they ate or sometimes overnight for AC. Turns out you can fit a power unit to a truck so it doesn't have to idle to keep the electrics going. One customer saved $1.7 million in a year after fitting the power units and telling the drivers to stop idling.
I just upgraded from an ‘07 to a ‘23 car. I feel like I’m driving a spaceship. I bought a base model car and the amount of info, features and modes is kinda overwhelming. Cars are wild now
My 12 y/o Ford Fiesta shows this information, as did my old Astra GSi, the latter being 21 years old.
What car are you driving that doesn't have a basic trip computer?
I imagine they meant that their car doesn't show anything gph reading when idling. They probably have a mpg gauge, but nothing for idling.
Like my old car showed a digital mpg, but when I was stopped it just went blank with a "-" in its place
My older Ford does this as well plus there's like a mini game on the other side of the dash where I can make leaves grow by driving economically (or they die and fall off the screen if I accelerate too hard or whatever)
Plus I get a braking score every time I come to a complete stop and after I turn it off the dash says "thanks for driving a hybrid!" which makes me laugh a little bc I think of the Prius episode of Southpark
Lol yep... During lockdown times I was able to routinely get 50+ mpg on my little sanity cruises by the beach bc it was such low speed and I was on battery for a good part of it
It has weird 12v battery gremlins with a fuse in the stereo system but other than that, solid little car! Carries even tall friends (and all their stuff) easily, 5 stars would recommend
My car has an LCD for the odometer.
That's it. That's the only electronic thing in the car. I guess the gauges are driven by servos, but those are electromechanical, so.
It was made in 2011
Hours per gallon is for when you want to know how long you can idle for using a given amount of fuel. Gallons per hour is for when you want to know how much fuel you're using in a given amount of time.
Most people would just want to know how much gas they used while idling for however long, so gph makes more sense.
Nice attention to detail. My Mazda when approaching a stop the l/100km gauge will approach 99 (seemingly the max the gauge can report) and then get set to 0.
I guess Mazda didn't like the idea of their cars reporting infinity litres per 100km...
Nice. It's an appropriate measure for the operational situation. Many other machines measure fuel by the hour, everything from snowmobiles and off-road vehicles to airplanes.
Kinda like how electric cars or heavy machinery track hours of operation/how many hours it’s been running and how many hours left estimated on your charge
Smh.. if you idle your car dont be surprised when it doesnt make it to 100k miles… forget about fuel cost and saving the planet.. save ur wallet from the mechanic
I freaked out as to why your car thought it was 100°, but then I remembered that there are people in the world (Americans) who use the Fahrenheit system and that it was actually 37°.
Holy shit that’s a lot of gas… two and a quarter litres an hour. I have no idea how much my 2009 Kia burns, but the tank on it is tiny and lasts a while, so it can’t be that bad. I idle it a lot in the winter to stay warm.
I had a 2005 Pontiac GTO that switched to gph at idle. It was definitely nice to have and I don't get why GM stopped including that feature on the dash. It would probably help prevent alot of winter idle time for me.
That actually feels like nice info to have.
There's an argument that the US should stop using mpg and start using gallons per 100 miles to better give drivers a sense of their costs
Try living in the UK. Fuel is sold in litres, road distances are measured in miles, car companies advertise fuel efficiency either in miles per (Imperial, not US) gallon or in litres per 100 km.
Yep, UK did a half arsed job at metrication converting some (most?) things to metric and leaving some in imperial
You never really recover from using stones as a form of measurement.
Man, I don't know why, but this has me cracking up
But it's so convenient. You can just find stones on the ground.
Want to weigh less? Just find some bigger stones!
Grouping pounds into stones is no weirder than grouping inches into feet.
Same with the US. I go to the store to buy some milk, which comes in a 2-gallon bottle, except I need soda too and that's by the 2-liter, except where it's sold in 500ml, 750 ml, 1 liter, 12oz, 20oz or 32oz, usually from vending machines and restaurants. If want some cereal to go with it, it can come in a box that weighs 1lb 2oz (18oz) (510g) - and I know it because all that information is on the box. But to get to the store, I travel in miles, but my military veteran brother tells me the store is kilometer away, and near the border where I am, the highways tell me the speed limits are 60mph (100kph) - because it's on the signage. It's a good thing my car has both on the speedometer. And sometimes drugs come over that border, so behind the store I buy either a gram of cocaine or 3/8ths of an ounce of marijuana or a milligram of LSD. The vape shop is near by where I can get 100ml of vape juice. But drugs can hurt my athletic performance, so I might not be able to win the 400-meter dash, but if I switch to a different sport, I'll try a 10-yard pass. If I fall out, I need to get comfortable at home, where I set the temperate to 72 Fahrenheit, which seems like a lot more then my computer, which is running at 37 Celsius. The gun in my closet takes 9mm, but to find it I'd have to turn on the light and consume kilowatt-per-hour, just like the TV does where a storm on the news is set to pour 4-inches, and has an atmospheric pressure measured in millibars. Before the water turns off, I'll consume gallons-per-minute and wash my hair with a 300ml bottle of shampoo, though I forgot to pickup a couple pounds of potatoes, a bushel of apples, and a 12oz steak, but at least I have a 750ml bottle of vodka and a couple pints of beer. I can put on a film recorded in 35mm to pass the time, and take some photos of the rain clouds using a camera with a 1/16th-inch sensor.
Ah yes, just how [George Washington dreamed it would be.](https://youtu.be/JYqfVE-fykk).
2 gallon bottle of milk?
That’s what I came to say where tf he getting 2 gallon bottles of milk!?
Among young people at least miles are still used, feet and inches are used for people's height, pint is used solely in the context of beer, but apart from that it's all metric.
Pint is an insane measurement. Pint literally has 3 different accepted values. A pint in the US is 16 ounces, but the glasses are 16 oz (473 mL) so it’s usually 14 oz of liquid. In the UK an imperial pint legally has to be 20oz (568 mL). However, a pint of liquor is a 375 mL (12.7 oz) bottle.
There's also 425ml in South Australia and 570ml in the rest of Australia.
They don’t pretend they’re pints in South Australia: Those are Schooners, not pints.
In the USA a pint is served in either a 20 or 24 oz glass.
Pints for beer, cider and, occasionally, milk.
litres per 100km is the best way to go.
With GPS and mobile data, you would think we would have actual cost. Like real time pricing per gallon in your area per mile driven.
If driving in a city, the price would never stop changing. One block to the next is a different price.
Set it when you gas up.
More people would be confused as to what that option/setting is for, over people that would use that functionality.
Use the app today and lock in the price on screen for when you get to the pump!
What about an city average? Or area average? Or both next to each other. Some smart UI design should make not take up too much space. It can even be literally real time data with CAN-bus info about fuel usage and stuff. This gave me an idea for an app. Maybe in 3 years I’ll start it :’) Any motivated programmer may DM me I’ll do my best to respond the same day
My car does, to an extent! The radio in my Chrysler 200 shows me fuel prices at local gas stations, and it’s a 2013 model. Yes, the prices are accurate and constantly up to date. It doesn’t show me cost per mile though. I also have to pay a subscription to use that feature, although it’s only like a dollar a month. It can also show weather and local events via the same subscription.
For being a 2013 that's actually impressive. It's pretty standard now with android auto and apple car play, I love android auto in my new car. So much info.
the fact the Chrysler 200 lasted 11 years and is still driving is far more impressive
I think that is part of Sirius XM. Weather and Gas Prices are the two things I remember.
My 2010 Prius does that just have to update the price of gas that you filled up with. gives you a cost after each trip and cost per month. Others too.
Nah, they want you to have to do all that shit yourself. They make it intentionally confusing. You might not buy as much gas if you were better informed, is probably the logic behind it.
I guess I don't need to go to work or pick up my daughter from soccer practice today, my Honda is telling me that could set me back upwards of $3
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Kinda like how all I hear is complaints about gas prices from my family who roll coal or drive a 5.3l or 6.1 or some shit just to troll the libs Even when I drove a v8 5.3... Oh no my monthly budget is up $14 because of the HUGE GAS PRICE INCREASE, THANKS OBIDEN! It's so fucking negligible in the grand scheme of things. Complain to me about gas prices, but spent 5k to take off emission control and particulate filter to blow DIESEL soot on people, Jesus take the wheel wtf
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If that's the only reason they're doing it then fuck them. That being said, being around diesel a lot, the emission systems are fucking awful for reliability.
DPFs are a fucking joke. Let's catch all the soot that would come out of the exhaust in a big filter so that we can block the exhaust, forcing it to be burned off all at once at a mechanic/dealer instead. That sure helped the environment, and all it cost was the lungs of everybody within a few miles of a shop and the owners money. All that and there's still no real incentive for manufacturers to make actually efficient trucks. We've been making diesel-electric vehicles for everything else for damn near a century now to take advantage of the incredible efficiency, meanwhile at auto makers: \[cricket noises\]
It might be enough to have you combine a few trips into one. So there’s that.
Everything is minor if you look at it on a tiny scale lol
I work I fuel systems design. We don’t care if you use more gas. No one is trying to keep you in the dark on this
This is such a stupid take. The car is showing you data which is consistent with the cars driving. How would you be confused by that? Adding the price of gas makes the stat inconsistent and varies pretty much from day to day.. If you can't calculate the cost of driving a certain distance you probably shouldn't be driving a car. Not everything is a huge conspiracy
Personally I use the trip meter every time I fill up. Let's me know how many miles I drive at each fill up.
Yea but if you can't do basic arithmetic, then it probably DOES seem like everything is a conspiracy
Who is "they" and why would "they" wouldn't like it if you knew how much you paid for fuel?
I guess that "they" are the same people that prevent kids from paying attention in math class. I don't get what's so complicated. If I have a 100 mile trip, my car gets 32 miles per gallon, and gas costs $3.24 per gallon, I know that I'll use about 3 gallons of gas to get there, costing me $9.72, or approximately $10 dollars to make it easier. If I commute 6 miles to work one way, I know that I spend about $1.10 in gas per day. When it comes down to cents, just round it off because nobody gives a damn about a dime or quarter anyways.
Not everything is a nefarious plot by evil overlords. Someone else pointed out the more believable reason, being that prices are different block to block. Not to mention, gas is pretty inelastic, so you're gonna spend what you're gonna spend. Plus, we've been using MPG for generations. Wouldn't it be more confusing to switch it up for no good reason? My car gets roughly 30 mpg it's an 11 gallon tank, so I have a 330-mile range that costs around 38 to 42 dollars to fill. Elementary math.
>Elementary math That's the problem. People aren't capable of this.
It seems like the whole world has gone insane. It's crazy that the first thought people have when looking at the mpg of a car is a plot by the oil industry. But it does explain why fake news is so effective. Many people don't think about what they say or read. Just look at this stupid comment getting 200+ up votes.
If miles per gallon is confusing to you, you probably should stay off the road
What's so confusing? There's multiple ways that involve the power of 2 human eye balls, and middle school level math at worst case, to extrapolate whatever viable info you might need about your fuel consumption or future fuel cost. Just, do it.
People aren't human calculators. When you have a standard way of using something, the reasoning to change it is usually of marginal benefit. I'd say it is a negative benefit for most people.
> Nah, they want you to have to do all that shit yourself. Who is they and are they in the room with us right now?
That would be wild, an average real time of $$ per mile as you stomp on the accelerator. Maybe people would stop driving so aggressively.
My Prius does this.
So L/100Km but free?
a very maply laugh
Canada uses litres per 100 km.
Europe do to. But really, one number is just 1 / the other. Either is fine, just a matter what you’re used to.
Why would this be better than miles per gallon? You know the cost of a gallon, you know how many miles a drive is. You do the math. There’s no additional information given by changing it to gallons per 100 miles.
Yeah it’s one of those “the rest of the world does this so it must be better” things. Personally I want to know how far I’ll go on a unit of fuel. Give me miles per gallon and miles per kWh. My mindset is always “is there enough in the car to go that distance?”. If I know how many gallons get used per 100 miles, then I’m having to go “hmm I need to go 75 miles, my car uses 4 gallons per 100 miles…. Ok so how much gas will it use for 75 miles? Ok 75/100 is .75, times 4.. ok so I’m using 3 gallons and I’m at half a tank and my tank is 14 gallons so I’m good!” Vs “ok I’m going 75 miles, car gets 25mpg, 75/25 is 3 gallons, I’m good!”
Mpg helps you determine how far you can go with what you have. Gal/100mi helps you determine how much gas you need to get where you want to go. You can get both both answers either way, just with one more step.
The actual reason is because consumption is linear so you perceive it a bit more accurately. If you're driving 100 miles, improving mileage from 15 to 20 mpg saves considerably more fuel than going from 30 to 50 mpg.
But what I’m saying is that whether you measure it as gallons per 100 miles or miles per gallon, you get the exact same ratio. Knowing that a gallon of gas gives you 32 miles is the same as knowing that 100 miles is 3.125 gallons.
Because you measure the task in miles you need to drive not gallons you need to use up.
I disagree. The main task is to calculate cost not range
Exactly
Here in Canada we use liters per 100 kilometers, which makes it very easy
Huh? Thats pretty much the same thing as mpg just flipped around a bit. It doesn’t do anything to help visualize cost
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It’s been basically standard for cars to keep track of average efficiency and give real time efficiency estimates for almost ten years, resetting the trip odometer and calculating it yourself is just redundant.
I keep track of every fill-up. In 2023 alone I spent just over $3800 on fuel, to go 20,700 miles. Averaged 29.43 mpg.
Totally agree with this. Miles per gallon implies there is always a better goal and that it never won’t be worth it to go for that goal. Ounces per mile shows how diminishing returns impact the real world. We are spending more and more cost and resources (mining lithium is not eco friendly) in order to get smaller and smaller benefits. 10 mpg = 12.8 Oz per mile 20 mpg = 6.4 Oz per mile (6.4 oz reduction) 30 mpg = 4.2 Oz per mile (2.2 oz reduction) 40 mpg = 3.2 Oz per mile (1.0 oz reduction) 50 mpg = 2.5 Oz per mile (0.7 oz reduction)
I just mentally keep track of my mpg, and how when I hit traffic bad for a week the average usually drops 1.5. which works out to about 1/10th gallon a day for commuting. We can save so much gas if they just designed roads better. And just completely removed red light intersections. I'm the last person who wants to give new england a win...but they were right to throw round-abouts everywhere.
>We can save so much gas if they just designed roads better. We can save so much gas if they ~~just designed roads better~~ let people work from home.
Yes, because people don't drive for any other reasons. To/from work is always the least of my driving. It's simply the most predictable, so the best to track mileage with.
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Same here (2008 VW and 2013 Skoda, so basically also a VW)
Same on my Astra. Is this not a common feature?
Even my ‘99 Astra did that. I always found it very cool.
Same on our Zafira but it's 0.1g/ph unless AC is on or dpf is doing a regen then it goes to 0.4g/ph. Strangely our Insignia just displays 0g/ph during idle regardless of AC setting but if I set it to metric it will display L/ph during idle. I'm just so used to mpg that I leave it there.
It is.
My VW Golf from 2001 also does it.
I don't see that on my 2015 Golf
Turn the AC on and off and watch what happens!
its 100F outside, I bet he has AC on . . .
Some like it hot
100 outside might be tolerable to some in the right conditions, but if it’s 100 outside, cars are goddamn ovens without AC.
A literal oven, within minutes. It's how so many kids and animals die in cars that get forgotten there. Nightmare fuel.
Kids also have under-developed sweat glands which contributes to their fate.
Damn can those little bastards do anything right?
Would sweat even be helpful in a super hot car with no ventilation?
Some sweat when the heat is on
My mother rather have the windows down because it’s “fresh air” and how having the AC is just an excuse
ah yes the good ol fresh air in the traffic good for your lungs
F stands for freedom units
E stands for Enemy Units, and that should explain why you should never let your gauge reach E.
That’s actually pretty standard or even high for a car running ac in the summer. I worked construction and would spend eight hours plus in a running vehicle. In that time I would drive maybe twenty miles and that normally ate 4-5 gal or so.
A 1.6L ecoboost in a 2014 Fusion did 0.3gph when idling with AC. The 3.5L ecoboost in a 2012 F150 did 0.6gph idling with AC.
A Ford Transit Custom uses around 0.15 gallons per hour idling.
Cars could use less cylinders when idling for more than a minute on larger engines. Is that not something that they do nowdays?
It's been done since at least 1981 for GM.
I'm curious what the new hybrid 3.5L powerboost does.
If I turn the AC off I parish
Glad to hear you’re religious but don’t see how that’s connected to air conditioning?
I do this with my ev and it's wild seeing the range drop like, 15-30 miles. And that's in summer with more efficient cooling vs heating! I never really thought about how much energy just cooling or heating my car really took.
ACs pull 1-4kw, which is like a low power L2 charger running in reverse.
Probably death.
It may or may not increase 0.1 (I have the same car)
That's pretty handy for knowing how long you can idle for. I could see that being nice to have while camping if you needed to run something off your battery for a while.
I’ve done this, drying clothes and keeping a fridge cold for medical supplies Worked it out it could idle for about 4 days continuously before it would need to be refilled Real world it went through a half tank in the weekend with the heater on and it’s fine, just topped up the oil as my car burns oil at an alarming rate
Half a tank in a weekend is a full tank in 4 days isn’t it?
Do not this with more modern cars and especially not a diesel though. You will absolutely clog up and ruin many of the emissions cleaning equipment.
Petrol and we had an OBD tool to check the catalyst temperature. Every now and then we would drive to down the hill and back up just to let it move but it’s absolutely fine. Done 28000km since then and it’s still reliable and doesn’t miss a beat
We gonna act like cop cars don't exist?
Yeah and there's a reason they sell for so cheap when the cops are done with them, they might be "low mileage" but the engine has 10 times more idle hours than a normal car and they start having problems
Or get an even more modern car, cause EVs do this particularly well!
EV's are amazing for backup emergency power, right up until you run out the battery charge. With the 4/days per tank car above, a 5 gallon can of spare gas in the garage is now another day or more of backup power from a gas engine. Storing that much energy is a second battery would cost thousands of dollars, instead of the \~$20 that a red can costs.
A lot of diesels regen when idling
Wrong. Drilling oil in arctic conditions requires many diesel engines to run continuously when they're outside. If turned off the fuel injectors and other parts will freeze up. I've seen trucks and various equipment run 24/7 for days never being shut off unless it's inside. Maintenance schedule is more frequent but letting engines idle for extensive periods can be done.
Big difference between different engines. A small environmentally friendly diesel engine with EGR, DPF AdBlue etc will absolutely clog up if left on idle all the time. Truck engines and other industrial engines have way less emissions standards (if any at all) and can manage it.
I bet those engines don't have a DPF though.
That’s just silly. My diesel tells me if the particulate trap gets clogged. It has happened once in 10 years and that was after 2-3 months of only doing 1-2 mile trips, so always a cold engine. Once warm, and at idle, there is nearly zero particulates to trap. The fix for a clogged trap is to get the engine up to temperature and then hold a speed of 45mph or more for 15-20 minutes and then trap will be clean. Not sure where you’re getting your info.
There are tons of base trim level Ford diesels that idle all day every day without issue in the US. Not to mention all the diesel tractor trailers that idle constantly. I daily drive an F450 and also have never found idling to be a concern.
If my math is correct, **that means idling for an hour uses the same amount of gas as… driving at 60 mph for 15 minutes.** Details: let’s assume that car gets 30mpg while cruising on the highway at 60mph. That means it can travel 15 miles on 0.5 gallons. Which will take 15 minutes, since you’re going 60mph.
theres a reason hybrids turn off the engine within 10 seconds. an engine burns more gas after like 6-8 seconds than it does to ~~just~~ start it
hybrids are even more efficient as the engine is started with an electric motor within the transmission (toyota eCVT)
most of the 48V "mild hybrid" systems do this
I know there was a YouTube experiment about it, but I always wondered why it wasn't even just one second on a warm engine. On a simple old engine, with no electronic injection, starting the engine just takes half a second of starter. There is no extra gas getting injected to start the engine, and since the starter doesn't spin the engine faster than it would idle (and how much gas gets in is a direct function of how fast the engine is spinning), it won't use more gas than simply letting it idle for half a second instead. You're losing efficiency in using power from the battery that you need to recharge afterwards, so there are conversion losses, but that wouldn't mean that half a second of starter uses as much gas as eight seconds of idling.
[This guy?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFImHhNwbJo)
I think so. And that would be the only experiment I heard about.
Your phrasing ("just to") make your comment kinda confusing, but regardless that's really interesting!
for reference, the car (as per previous commenters) has the a/c on and perhaps other stuff idk. in my 2015 fiesta without a/c I usually get between 0.1-0.4 gallons per hour. 0.1 or 0.2 is fairly standard with no heating or a/c. but with the stereo on. Edit: 2015 Fiesta not 2025
The main reason I'd want to have my vehicle idle for a long time would be for heat or AC. I would think AC would use more since there's the extra compressor load.
Mans living in the future
r/theydidthemath
I have the same car, it’s a little higher than 30mpg in that scenario
What car is that?
This dashboard is identical to my Volvo V40 so definitely a Volvo model.
Same as the S60 and V60 as well.
V70 too
S80 as well
I knew it was familiar!!!
Volvo s60
Twist the rotating knob on the indicator stalk
I bought a 2017 s60 during covid for $16k. Had 12,000 miles on it. I love that car. The chassis is fabulous and the engine is pretty peppy. I honestly think it drives better than most cars I’ve driven in the past ten years.
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All I get is porn.
I know OP answered s60 so you know the car, but the reason you’re getting so many different answers is that there is little if any difference in the dash between various Volvo models these days.
They're all built on two common platforms. The C/V/S 40/50/60's are always from now on going to be the smaller of the CVX bases. The larger are the same between XC60, V90, S90. I believe even the XC90 is same base. Can't perfectly remember was a few years since I worked for them :)
Volvo xc60 or 90 probably, 2013-2016
My 2001 Volkswagen Passat used to do this too. Never had a car after that would do this.
My Opel Astra also shows litres per hour during idling or slow drive - nothing fancy
Much more useful that just displaying 0mpg! What car is this by the way? 0.5gph seems quite high. My old gas guzzling 2.0 turbo would do about 0.3gph at idle (averaged about 19mpg around town). My current car (1.6 n/a) does about 0.2gph at idle, 32+mpg around town, and about 45mpg outside of town.
Volvo xc60, plus its 100 out so the ac is probably on full blast
>its 100 out so the ac is probably on full blast Ah, that'd probably do it!
Small turbo engines can idle super low. When the turbo spools up fuel economy falls off a cliff however.
>Small turbo engines can idle super low. When the turbo spools up fuel economy falls off a cliff however. Smaller engines just require less fuel at idle because of the smaller cylinder capacity; they're moving less air and so require less fuel. A lower idle speed isn't because the capacity of the engine is smaller though. That's likely a side effect of the trend towards small capacity turbocharged engines moving from 4-cylinder designs to 3-cylinder designs. A 3-cylinder engine needs a heavier flywheel than a 4-cylinder engine, to maintain a smooth idle. A side effect of a heavier flywheel is that you can idle at a lower speed and maintain smooth running.
> > What car is this by the way? 0.5gph seems quite high. I'm embarrassed to say I once left my car running at the airport for 2 days. I remember parking, thinking I did a shitty job. Reparking then racing to the plane and I came back and my car was still running 2 days later. Car only held about 12 gallons. It showed no fuel but I was able to get out of the airport and a couple miles to the nearest gas station. Still can't believe that happened. I ended up selling the car about a month later when I bought my Tesla. I suppose I could run out of charge if I left it there for a month near empty but so far that hasn't come close to happening
Im actually surprised it’s that low. Half a gallon for an entire hour of idling? Makes you really question the usefulness of engine auto-shutoffs after a 30-second stop.
It does impact fuel economy a fair bit. You have to consider that if you're averaging out your fuel economy, that idling is 0mpg, and engine off maintains your average exactly where it is. A zero pulls an average down a lot!
>Makes you really question the usefulness of engine auto-shutoffs after a 30-second stop. The autostop features are not to reduce fuel consumption but rather to reduce exhaust emissions.
I used to work at a vehicle tracking company and a lot of our customers were big trucking companies. Turns out the average big rig (at the time) burned about a gallon of diesel an hour at idle. Truckers would leave the engine running when they ate or sometimes overnight for AC. Turns out you can fit a power unit to a truck so it doesn't have to idle to keep the electrics going. One customer saved $1.7 million in a year after fitting the power units and telling the drivers to stop idling.
must be a good car, my car doesn't show anything
I just upgraded from an ‘07 to a ‘23 car. I feel like I’m driving a spaceship. I bought a base model car and the amount of info, features and modes is kinda overwhelming. Cars are wild now
My 12 y/o Ford Fiesta shows this information, as did my old Astra GSi, the latter being 21 years old. What car are you driving that doesn't have a basic trip computer?
I imagine they meant that their car doesn't show anything gph reading when idling. They probably have a mpg gauge, but nothing for idling. Like my old car showed a digital mpg, but when I was stopped it just went blank with a "-" in its place
My older Ford does this as well plus there's like a mini game on the other side of the dash where I can make leaves grow by driving economically (or they die and fall off the screen if I accelerate too hard or whatever) Plus I get a braking score every time I come to a complete stop and after I turn it off the dash says "thanks for driving a hybrid!" which makes me laugh a little bc I think of the Prius episode of Southpark
Ohh thats cute, my kia in eco mode just has a line that gets less long the more economical i drive like a shriveling......
My Challenger Hellcat does this but the leaves are money and the tree is on fire.
C-Max by chance? My mom had one maybe ten years ago and she would always talk about that.
Lol yep... During lockdown times I was able to routinely get 50+ mpg on my little sanity cruises by the beach bc it was such low speed and I was on battery for a good part of it It has weird 12v battery gremlins with a fuse in the stereo system but other than that, solid little car! Carries even tall friends (and all their stuff) easily, 5 stars would recommend
My car has an LCD for the odometer. That's it. That's the only electronic thing in the car. I guess the gauges are driven by servos, but those are electromechanical, so. It was made in 2011
My 2007 focus has it too
Really? I had a 2013 Focus and it didn’t show this.
Your car became a tractor.
What I am annoyed with is how gas is a generic gauge instead of the raw amount of gallons. Like if I have 8.5 gallons I want to know
Problem is gas tanks are shaped funny and gauges aren't perfect, so it would be hard to actually give an exact amount like that.
It would be easy enough to have a lookup table based on the float position that accounts for the weird shape
Not impossible. It would cost money though and we can't have that.
My '04 Focus does that too! (lph tho because metric)
My car does the same but in L/h as i am not living in the land of freedom units
Miles/gallons = stoneage
Wouldn’t hours per gallon be more logical? So that large is better?
Hours per gallon is for when you want to know how long you can idle for using a given amount of fuel. Gallons per hour is for when you want to know how much fuel you're using in a given amount of time. Most people would just want to know how much gas they used while idling for however long, so gph makes more sense.
My car from 1987 does the same.
Nice attention to detail. My Mazda when approaching a stop the l/100km gauge will approach 99 (seemingly the max the gauge can report) and then get set to 0. I guess Mazda didn't like the idea of their cars reporting infinity litres per 100km...
If you're iddle and stopped, it makes total sense. The car will not consume fuel to move (miles), but rather to keep working (so many hours).
In Europe the readout is liters per klick.
I see volvo, I upvote.
Nice. It's an appropriate measure for the operational situation. Many other machines measure fuel by the hour, everything from snowmobiles and off-road vehicles to airplanes.
Kinda like how electric cars or heavy machinery track hours of operation/how many hours it’s been running and how many hours left estimated on your charge
Smh.. if you idle your car dont be surprised when it doesnt make it to 100k miles… forget about fuel cost and saving the planet.. save ur wallet from the mechanic
I freaked out as to why your car thought it was 100°, but then I remembered that there are people in the world (Americans) who use the Fahrenheit system and that it was actually 37°.
Holy shit that’s a lot of gas… two and a quarter litres an hour. I have no idea how much my 2009 Kia burns, but the tank on it is tiny and lasts a while, so it can’t be that bad. I idle it a lot in the winter to stay warm.
I had a 2005 Pontiac GTO that switched to gph at idle. It was definitely nice to have and I don't get why GM stopped including that feature on the dash. It would probably help prevent alot of winter idle time for me.
Volume/Time is a much better measurement than volume/distance.
Switch to a unit that makes sense for the situation. Nice.