Time To Change FRom MPG to MPL?
Thursday, 12. April 2012
Is it about time to move away from MPG to MPL? For the last 20 years we’ve been buying fuel by the litre but continued to measure fuel consumption by the gallon, it doesn’t make a lot of sense and a third of all drivers seem to agree, according to the AA who surveyed 21,450 motorists. The AA also agreed that they also felt that mpg was ‘outmoded, confusing and irrelevant’ and should finally be ditched. The president of the AA, Edmund King, supported the findings suggesting that to buy fuel by the litre then measure fuel consumption in terms of miles per gallon simply didn’t add up or make sense.
When 10 drivers were asked to work out the cost of a trip given the distance, fuel consumption in MPG and the cost of a litre of petrol, only one got it right. For those that can’t remember there is just over 4.5 litres to a gallon but wouldn’t it be easier knowing that your car did 10 miles per litre than 45 miles per gallon?
Given a trip of 100 miles at 10 miles per litre with petrol costing £1.42 per litre isn’t it simple to work out the cost (gets his calculator out), ummm £14.20. When told fuel consumption in miles per litre 60% of those given the same problem, came up with the correct answer, without the use of a calculator.
That means 40% of them got it wrong, so it would be a little unfair to give out names (all I’m saying is Tesco Extra fuel forecourt, Watford, Herts).
Now that’s pretty much the gist of the report I read and it comes across as a landslide victory for the MPL brigade, when of course the vast majority of those questioned (67%), actually didn’t want to change, called creative journalism I think! But what do you think? Time to change? By Graham Hill
Jamie Says:
I agree that talking about miles per gallon when you buy fuel in liters is a little silly.