Metric Fuel Consumption
Discussion
Shakermaker said:
I don't understand why you say it is the wrong way round.
I have a number of units of fuel - I therefore know the maximum distance I can travel with those units.
That's not really the case is it.I have a number of units of fuel - I therefore know the maximum distance I can travel with those units.
Most people have no idea how many gallons of fuel their car has in it.
And you know how many miles your car does from full, and your car has an instantaneous read-out of how far it will travel with the current charge/fuel level.
The fuel/electricity consumption is a measure of how much energy your car uses. Just as you might compare a 60W lightbulb to a 6W LED you compare 400Wh/mile car to a 500Wh/mile car. Or a 10 l/100 miles car to a 5 l/100 miles.
thelawnet1 said:
Because miles per unit of fuel is still the wrong way round.
It's really not.It depends whether you want to calculate how far you can go on a known amount of fuel, or the amount of fuel you need to go a fixed distance as to whether it's the 'wrong way round' for making the calculation in a single, simple step. Maybe it's because I grew up with MPG, but I do the former far more often than the latter, so it's definitely the right way around for me.
thelawnet1 said:
Most people have no idea how many gallons of fuel their car has in it.
And you know how many miles your car does from full, and your car has an instantaneous read-out of how far it will travel with the current charge/fuel level.
My car only has a digital readout telling me exactly how much fuel it thinks it has, in litres. Any range calculations have to be performed with old-fashioned mental arithmetic, for which MPG is the correct measure to use, of those available (miles per litre not being a measure used by anyone).And you know how many miles your car does from full, and your car has an instantaneous read-out of how far it will travel with the current charge/fuel level.
thegreenhell said:
My car only has a digital readout telling me exactly how much fuel it thinks it has, in litres. Any range calculations have to be performed with old-fashioned mental arithmetic, for which MPG is the correct measure to use, of those available (miles per litre not being a measure used by anyone).
so it doesn't have a fuel gauge showing the progression from full to empty? thelawnet1 said:
Shakermaker said:
I don't understand why you say it is the wrong way round.
I have a number of units of fuel - I therefore know the maximum distance I can travel with those units.
That's not really the case is it.I have a number of units of fuel - I therefore know the maximum distance I can travel with those units.
Most people have no idea how many gallons of fuel their car has in it.
And you know how many miles your car does from full, and your car has an instantaneous read-out of how far it will travel with the current charge/fuel level.
The fuel/electricity consumption is a measure of how much energy your car uses. Just as you might compare a 60W lightbulb to a 6W LED you compare 400Wh/mile car to a 500Wh/mile car. Or a 10 l/100 miles car to a 5 l/100 miles.
thelawnet1 said:
thegreenhell said:
My car only has a digital readout telling me exactly how much fuel it thinks it has, in litres. Any range calculations have to be performed with old-fashioned mental arithmetic, for which MPG is the correct measure to use, of those available (miles per litre not being a measure used by anyone).
so it doesn't have a fuel gauge showing the progression from full to empty? thelawnet1 said:
Shakermaker said:
I don't understand why you say it is the wrong way round.
I have a number of units of fuel - I therefore know the maximum distance I can travel with those units.
That's not really the case is it.I have a number of units of fuel - I therefore know the maximum distance I can travel with those units.
Most people have no idea how many gallons of fuel their car has in it.
And you know how many miles your car does from full, and your car has an instantaneous read-out of how far it will travel with the current charge/fuel level.
The fuel/electricity consumption is a measure of how much energy your car uses. Just as you might compare a 60W lightbulb to a 6W LED you compare 400Wh/mile car to a 500Wh/mile car. Or a 10 l/100 miles car to a 5 l/100 miles.
But, in my head at least, in my old little van, I have a (vague) knowledge of the amount of fuel represented at each stage of the gauge's progress and a therefore reasonable enough idea of how far that will take me from that point. So to me, I do like to know the distance I can go on the amount of fuel I have.
Shakermaker said:
I have a number of units of fuel - I therefore know the maximum distance I can travel with those units.
Do you travel a certain amount of fuel's worth of distance, because that's how much is in your tank?Or do you travel a certain distance, because that's how far it is from where you are to where you want to go?
Pica-Pica said:
I compare lumens when I am purchasing light bulbs, or more specifically lumens per watt, to get an idea of efficiency (always assuming the colour temperature is OK)
Well lumens first of all, as a measure of the brightness you want.The problem with lumens per watt is that they might say that bulb 1 is 350 lumens (which may well be accurate) and 4W, and bulb 2 is 300 lumens for 3W.
So apparently the second bulb is significantly much more efficient, but in reality may be the second bulb is actually 3.4W but sold as 3W so not really any more efficient.
TooMany2cvs said:
Shakermaker said:
I have a number of units of fuel - I therefore know the maximum distance I can travel with those units.
Do you travel a certain amount of fuel's worth of distance, because that's how much is in your tank?Or do you travel a certain distance, because that's how far it is from where you are to where you want to go?
TooMany2cvs said:
Not quite true. The OP will. But since he'll be dead of old age before long...
Not quite true because I have just worked out my life expectancy in metric and it is not nearly as long as it is in imperialThe metric system was based on a false measurement of the circumference of the Earth. Not a good start.Most of us have ten fingers, so you would have thought that we always should have been metric, but it was found to be inconvenient in the market place when you wanted to divide produce like eggs or bottles of wine. Hence the wine is still sold in dozens in France although they introduced the metric system
In the real world, if your car runs out of fuel and someone kindly comes along with a 5 litre can of fuel, it would be useful to know how far that five litres will take you and if you can reach the next garage, Km;/litre will tell you easily, litres/100km is hard work.
I have accepted litres and km for measurement of fuel consumption, and I far prefer my Japanese import for showing me clearly what is going on with km/litre
Vanin said:
How on earth did the Europeans adopt such a stupid system and why did they not do km/litre like the Japanese?
Miles per gallon are useless to me. I don't buy petrol by gallon and my tank size is quoted in litres as well. I only learned some estimated conversions between l/100km and mpg to quote it to British. Otherwise I think in km and in l/100km. It all depends where you come from and what is standard for you. When I check car spec and it says 80l tank, I can easily count how many km I can do on the tank and only then convert km to miles.
Mr2Mike said:
TooMany2cvs said:
Shakermaker said:
I have a number of units of fuel - I therefore know the maximum distance I can travel with those units.
Do you travel a certain amount of fuel's worth of distance, because that's how much is in your tank?Or do you travel a certain distance, because that's how far it is from where you are to where you want to go?
If anything, from your example, I'd have said 3 x 7 = 21 is easier mental arithmetic than 4.5 x 40 = 180.
You need one further piece of information - 62 miles = 100 km - to know if you can do 150 miles (you can because 300km is 186 miles). Your dual-marked speedo gives you that information.
You need one further piece of information - 4.5 litres = 1 gallon - to know if you can do it with mpg, too. If you google for that information, the chances are high you'll be told it's 3.8 liters, unless you're aware of US-UK differences in gallons.
If we were consistent with units, instead of this half-arsed mash-up, then you would not need any metric-imperial piece of information.
'course, the reality is that you'll need to fill up, because the economy figures never work in the real world, no matter whether metric or imperial. And the fuel gauge probably isn't linear anyway, so who knows if you have 15 or 25 litres?
Vanin said:
The metric system was based on a false measurement of the circumference of the Earth. Not a good start.Most of us have ten fingers, so you would have thought that we always should have been metric, but it was found to be inconvenient in the market place when you wanted to divide produce like eggs or bottles of wine. Hence the wine is still sold in dozens in France although they introduced the metric system
Mmm. Whereas the Dibnah system makes perfect sense for divisibility, right...?Now, remind me, is it 16 ounces in a pound and 14 pounds in a stone, or vice-versa? Then there's 12 inches in a foot, 3 foot in a yard, gawd knows how many yards in a mile. How many pints in a gallon? Ah, yes. That brings us to the floz. Let's completely ignore the variable densities of liquids, and repurpose a weight measurement for volume. Still, at least we don't insist on using the flamin' cup... Which cup is this recipe in? US, Imperial, Canadian, or metric? And that doesn't even take into account compaction of loose produce - or the airgaps when you try to squeeze a solid in.
And that's before we get into the fractions - oooh, I need a slightly bigger spanner than 9/32"... <quickly scales fractions up and down>
TooMany2cvs said:
Mmm. Whereas the Dibnah system makes perfect sense for divisibility, right...?
Now, remind me, is it 16 ounces in a pound and 14 pounds in a stone, or vice-versa? Then there's 12 inches in a foot, 3 foot in a yard, gawd knows how many yards in a mile. How many pints in a gallon? Ah, yes. That brings us to the floz. Let's completely ignore the variable densities of liquids, and repurpose a weight measurement for volume. Still, at least we don't insist on using the flamin' cup... Which cup is this recipe in? US, Imperial, Canadian, or metric? And that doesn't even take into account compaction of loose produce - or the airgaps when you try to squeeze a solid in.
And that's before we get into the fractions - oooh, I need a slightly bigger spanner than 9/32"... <quickly scales fractions up and down>
Nothing is easy when you compare it in that manner. Imperial measurements do not easily compare with each other in the same was metric ones do, but of course, they were designed more for "the common man" to make things easy. Now, remind me, is it 16 ounces in a pound and 14 pounds in a stone, or vice-versa? Then there's 12 inches in a foot, 3 foot in a yard, gawd knows how many yards in a mile. How many pints in a gallon? Ah, yes. That brings us to the floz. Let's completely ignore the variable densities of liquids, and repurpose a weight measurement for volume. Still, at least we don't insist on using the flamin' cup... Which cup is this recipe in? US, Imperial, Canadian, or metric? And that doesn't even take into account compaction of loose produce - or the airgaps when you try to squeeze a solid in.
And that's before we get into the fractions - oooh, I need a slightly bigger spanner than 9/32"... <quickly scales fractions up and down>
The word Mile is derived from Roman "mille passus" meaning one thousand paces - specifically though, it was one thousand times the left foot was placed down when marching. This equates to approximately 5,000 feet (in modern day) and is slightly shorter than an actual mile - 5280 feet. But that's because it seems they decided to make a proper English mile to be 8 furlongs, a measure they already used in farming, and so it was easily divisible.
American "cups" in recipes - I guess they've just made everything much easier, who needs scales when you can use a cup? Most cups are the same-ish size so you can always use the same ratio of ingredients if you have the same cup. There are now actual measures for these things, but its definitely something I only became aware of a couple of years ago
Shakermaker said:
TooMany2cvs said:
Mmm. Whereas the Dibnah system makes perfect sense for divisibility, right...?
Now, remind me, is it 16 ounces in a pound and 14 pounds in a stone, or vice-versa? Then there's 12 inches in a foot, 3 foot in a yard, gawd knows how many yards in a mile. How many pints in a gallon? Ah, yes. That brings us to the floz. Let's completely ignore the variable densities of liquids, and repurpose a weight measurement for volume. Still, at least we don't insist on using the flamin' cup... Which cup is this recipe in? US, Imperial, Canadian, or metric? And that doesn't even take into account compaction of loose produce - or the airgaps when you try to squeeze a solid in.
And that's before we get into the fractions - oooh, I need a slightly bigger spanner than 9/32"... <quickly scales fractions up and down>
Nothing is easy when you compare it in that manner. Imperial measurements do not easily compare with each other in the same was metric ones do, but of course, they were designed more for "the common man" to make things easy. Now, remind me, is it 16 ounces in a pound and 14 pounds in a stone, or vice-versa? Then there's 12 inches in a foot, 3 foot in a yard, gawd knows how many yards in a mile. How many pints in a gallon? Ah, yes. That brings us to the floz. Let's completely ignore the variable densities of liquids, and repurpose a weight measurement for volume. Still, at least we don't insist on using the flamin' cup... Which cup is this recipe in? US, Imperial, Canadian, or metric? And that doesn't even take into account compaction of loose produce - or the airgaps when you try to squeeze a solid in.
And that's before we get into the fractions - oooh, I need a slightly bigger spanner than 9/32"... <quickly scales fractions up and down>
The word Mile is derived from Roman "mille passus" meaning one thousand paces - specifically though, it was one thousand times the left foot was placed down when marching. This equates to approximately 5,000 feet (in modern day) and is slightly shorter than an actual mile - 5280 feet. But that's because it seems they decided to make a proper English mile to be 8 furlongs, a measure they already used in farming, and so it was easily divisible.
Shakermaker said:
American "cups" in recipes - I guess they've just made everything much easier, who needs scales when you can use a cup? Most cups are the same-ish size so you can always use the same ratio of ingredients if you have the same cup. There are now actual measures for these things, but its definitely something I only became aware of a couple of years ago
I want to make some crumble topping. Packing the flour into cups is easy - it settles easily. But I want some oats in there. They don't settle as easily. How far down do I squish 'em to get a consistent ratio to the flour? And the butter - is it cold (so it won't fit easily) or warm (so it will, but'll leave more on the edge of the cup)? 'scuse me while I reach for the scales and weigh 'em.Oh, and it's great if EVERYTHING is cups, but if there's a teaspoon or other measure in there, too, then which cup you use does matter.
Edited by TooMany2cvs on Thursday 23 November 09:58
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