How to Calculate Miles per Gallon for Energy Efficiency Vehicles
By: Thomas Yoon
If you look through the sales brochures of new cars, very often
you can find figures that indicate the fuel efficiency of the
car. With that information, you can compare and find out the
most fuel efficient vehicle that will meet your needs. Even
within a specific size class, there is a tremendous range of
MPG (miles per gallon) performance that you can find.
Just for example, for the same model year compact cars, we can
find fuel efficiency ranges from 21 to 48 MPG. If you choose
the 48 MPG car, you could be saving hundreds of dollars in fuel
costs each year. I think that should be an important point to
note when buying a new car.
How do you calculate the actual miles per gallon consumed by
your vehicle? I am going to show you how below.
Knowing how to calculate the MPG should be useful when you want
to verify the claims made by the manufacturers.
In my previous articles, I have discussed the many factors that
can affect the efficiency of your vehicle. You can easily do
your own experiments and monitor the results once you know how
to calculate the MPG.
The most obvious place to start is to keep a fuel purchase
record. What you need in the record are:
1. The vehicle number or model (This is optional, but will be
useful if you have more than one vehicle)
2. The date on which the vehicle was refueled. (This is optional,
but will be useful if you want to know how often you have to
refill)
3. The odometer reading (This is important as it will show how
many miles you vehicle has traveled)
4. The gallons of petrol filled up. (This is important as it
will show how many gallons of fuel is consumed)
5. The filled up cost. (This is optional, but will be useful to
show how much money you have to spend on fuel)
I would suggest that you make the above entries into a table
with rows and columns for entries. If you are doing your own
experiments, I would suggest that you also add a column for that.
For example, you might like to monitor the mpg after you have
overhauled your vehicle engine, or perhaps after driving during
off peak traffic hours, traveling long distances, or after
making some changes to your driving behavior...
The last column in the record will be the MPG, or miles per
gallon. This is a calculated value.
Calculating MPG from fuel purchase data is quite simple. Just
divide the number of miles traveled by the gallons of fuel used.
This method is only valid if the tank was filled completely for
the current purchase and the previous purchase. It will be more
accurate when you keep data for more than one purchase.
Let's say you have made a purchase of 8 gallons of fuel on 26th
May 2006. At this time, the odometer shows 16002.3 miles and you
have filled to full tank. You filled up again 7.1 gallons to full
tank on 1st June 2006, and your odometer shows 16287.8 miles on
this date.
The distance traveled is calculated by subtracting the new
odometer reading from the previous one. This means 16287.8 minus
16002.3 which gives a distance of 285.5 miles.
The MPG is calculated by dividing the distance traveled by the
gallons of fuel consumed. In this case, it is 285.5 / 7.1 which
gives a result of 40.2 miles per gallon.
Another way of getting the same result will be to reset the trip
odometer to zero on the first refueling on 26th May 2006. So when
you fuel up again on 1st June 2006, you can directly read the
total distance traveled, i.e. 285.5 miles. Then when you divide
this figure with the new fuel put in on 1st June 2006, you will
get the same answer, i.e. 40.2 miles per gallon.
By knowing how to calculate the MPG, you will be able to monitor
your progress in achieving the best optimum efficiency in your
vehicle and save money in the process.
Until next time...
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