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2 In 3 Misunderstand Gas Mileage; Here's Why
thecarchik sends in this piece, which was published last March but remains timely: "OK, so here's a little test: Which saves more gasoline, going from 10 to 20 mpg, or going from 33 to 50 mpg? If you're like most Americans, you picked the second one. But, in fact, that's exactly backwards. Over any given mileage, replacing a 10-mpg vehicle with one that gets 20 mpg saves five times the gasoline that replacing a 33-mpg vehicle with one that gets 50 does. Last summer, Duke University's Fuqua School of Business released a study that shows how much damage comes from using MPG instead of consumption to measure how green a car is. Management professors Richard Larick and Jack Soll's experiments proved that consumers thought fuel consumption was cut at an even rate as mileage increased."
Yup, the average person is mathematically still an infant (or has forgotten all they learned and reverted back to infancy).
What they need to start doing is standardizing how they mark vehicles fuel consumption. Here in Australia, they label most electric appliances with a sticker in the shops that shows you just how much energy it consumed compared to other similar alliances. It's not perfect, but it's a start in the right direction, and it has been running for a long time.
Perhaps they could start doing something like this with cars?
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While working Cash For Clunkers in the United States, a lot of people were griping about how (people who got some new pickup truck with a 2mpg increase over told one) were getting the same credit as people who replaced their old car with a new one that gets like 10 or 15mpg more. Maybe if they had known about this, they'd understand.
Of course, when cars fly, km won't be relevant because the international standard for aviation is nautical miles and velocity in knots.
--Jim (me)
So let's use English units (even though England doesn't even use them anymore!)
There are 128 fluid ounces (oz) in a gallon. So oz/mile (let's call it OPM) is equivalent to gallons/128 miles.
This also happens to be about half the European value. (5 L/100km == 2.72 OPM == 47 MPG)
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
Perhaps you have no idea what they do when you're not watching them on the particular road you saw them on. Perhaps you don't see them when they're pulling a trailer, or hauling a soccer team around, or carrying three kayaks, etc. I guess you'd rather that person have a second vehicle manufactured for him, which he can separately maintain, insure, and store somewhere. That's super efficient.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Now in a general sense, should corn be used to produce ethanol? No, and that's a result of the lobby that you mentioned.
There IS a benefit to using corn (for now). If we encourage ethanol use, then an infrastructure gets built up which can handle ethanol. When the cellulosic ethanol starts to become more widely available, that can replace the corn-based, and the infrastructure will be in place. It is a bet, to be sure, but seems to be much more realistic than the hydrogen proposals out there. Bio-diesel is also a strong contender, but there's already a infrastructure in place for that, and you still need a fuel for the cold-weather states.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I never really managed to wrap my mind around the concept of MPG either. Yes, I'm European.
I wonder why it's defined that way in the US. It sure sounds more positive. I mean, you "get" a certain amount of miles out of a gallon of gas instead of "needing" a certain amount of gas to go 100km. Still I think it's easier to compare lp100km rather than mpg. It's trivial to calculate how much a kilometer costs me. Not so with mpg.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I had to cringe when you said "is underfunded and overstretched". Really this sort of organization shouldn't require any funding, and should simply use trademark rights to assert licensing terms with partners (manufactures, building contractors, etc). EnergyStar *almost* operates that way right now, given that it is a voluntary program.
UL(Underwriters Laboratories) is a private entity that required certain specific safety testing to be passed by a product before the UL logo can be placed on that product. They have a fairly narrow scope though, mainly for fire safety. But it is one of only a few testing labs recognized by various local building codes in the US as well as federal organizations such as OSHA. Testing fees are modest, and the organization is able to scale with demand.
Another example with is Snell. To use their logo on your helmet requires specific tests, the tests are fairly expensive so not all helmets are Snell certified, but part of their budget funds helmet safety research.
Why EnergyStar can't operated the same way, I do not understand. It seems like if we had an international standard (one of the positive aspects of EnergyStar) that provided oversight and certification of various testing facilities to authorize them to grant limited rights to licensed partners to claim certification would be scalable and efficient.
With an obscure government entity there are almost always problems with oversight and responsibility. When EnergyStar gets in trouble there is no CEO or politician to blame, it's all just faceless bureaucrats. In situations like these it is the media's responsibility to expose failures in a bureaucracy, but the side effect is consumer trust in the EnergyStar brand is damaged. A business operates differently when trust in a brand is important.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire