Why not MPL instead of MPG?

[Omaruk]

As the title really. Since we buy petrol in Litres, why don't we quote Miles per Litre (MPL) instead of Miles per Gallon (MPG) when providing fuel economy figures? Seems a bit daft and calculations involving 4.55

[Fartgalen]

Because it's litres per 10km, or 100km.

[eldar]

Do it properly. CC/KM

[garycat]

My Mazda 6 MPS trip computer reports consumption in litres per 100 miles.

[Impasse]

Because that would be the unit of the Devil.

[ADEuk]

My car does 7.39 miles per litre

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

What's always baffled me is car engines in the UK have always been quoted in cc, even when we didn't know what a centimetre was.

[judas]

Because we're all old farts who grew up with mpg. 40mpg means something to us, 8.8mpl means nothing

[R8VXF]

It is due to the crazy mix of imperial and metric which we use in this country. Having not moved over to that French system for road measurements yet, we quote mpg still so as to not mix systems. A bit daft, but hey that's how we roll.

[57Ford]

1. You'd be mixing units. Miles is imperial, litres is metric.
2. Easier to define better resolution with mpg (45mpg vs 0.9998mpl or whatever)
3. Cos we're English.

[Roo]

Because this is the UK.

[Dalmahoy]

Inch by inch - we're going metric.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

Dalmahoy said:

Inch by inch - we're going metric.

Does that mean we'll have a back metre?

[AC43]

judas said:

Because we're all old farts who grew up with mpg. 40mpg means something to us, 8.8mpl means nothing

Pence per litre means nothing to me either. So I have no easy way of mentally juggling distances/volumes/costs. On the other hand neither has my wife. So I get to keep buying V8's.

[Welshbeef]

AC43 said:

Pence per litre means nothing to me either. So I have no easy way of mentally juggling distances/volumes/costs. On the other hand neither has my wife. So I get to keep buying V8's.

The only important metric is pence per mile (admittedly when fuel price changes a lot its not great but in a steady state its great).

[Roo]

I couldn't give a monkeys about pence per mile.

If my car needs petrol, it needs petrol.

How many miles from how many gallons is all I care about.

Petrol costs what petrol costs. At the moment it's reasonably cheap. When it goes up my car costs more to run but still does the same MPG.

[MartinQ]

I like miles per gallon. It means when I tell my Polish wife that my car does 27mpg she has no idea what it means.

[cirian75]

I'm a typical child of the late 70s/80s/early 90s

I want things car wise and drinks in imperial, mph, mpg, bhp and pints.


but when I measure things, or say how far away an object is, I'm all metric.

[fathomfive]

I'm currently getting 4.546 litres per gallon.

[romeogolf]

As others have said it's because miles are imperial but litres are metric.