Comments by "GH1618" (@GH-oi2jf) on "Why America's MPG Is A Dumb Unit For Fuel Economy" video.

  1. That’s not a problem for the US. We chose the gallon we would use half a century before Britain decided to use a larger gallon throughout the Empire. Now, all the Commonwealth countries are abandoning the Imperial gallon, so if individuals don’t want to use the metric setting in their cars (because they drive miles), they should just use the US setting which computes miles per US gallon. Is the gallon used anywhere else in the UK now? Just don’t change the “pint” in the pubs, though, or you will have an uprising.
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  2. Even the United States doesn’t use it. We use US Customary units.
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  3. The only problem is your need to classify things. If someone finds mixed units useful, I have no objection.
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  4. Gallons per mile would be a fraction. Gallons per 100 miles would still require a fraction to be reasonably accurate, and 100 miles seems like an arbitrary number. Miles per gallon gives me a whole number which is a good approximation. My target is 28 mpg for my pickup. Knowing my fuel tank size, I know my range, approximately.
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  5. It’s just that you have to look at improvements in mpg geometrically, not arithmetically when you are looking at two or more cars. Increasing mpg by two for a car which has high mpg already is a small improvement, compared to the same increase for a gas guzzler. A factor of two is a better comparison, but you can’t get a factor of two for a car which already gets good mileage. For a fleet, you have to work out where the most gas is actually being used to make the most effective improvement.
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  6. The only think EE is selling is content on his channel.
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  7. You are wrong. US tire sizes used to be specified in US units for width. European and Japanese tire companies wanted to sell tires to the North American market, so they offered metric width tires for our wheels. Eventually, the old sizes were superceded by metric sizes, but wheel size remained in inches becausie changing that would entail a huge amount of trouble and expense with no benefit. If Europeans use wheels in inch sizes, I assume it’s because the tire companies want it. Having different wheel sizes would double the number of tire sizes required with no benefit. It’s a practical compromise.
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  8. Joules are for physicists.
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  9. Why all the attitude?
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  10. If you have moved to the metric system, you don’t have to think about it.
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  11. In the USA we don’t worry about what other countries use for a gallon, unless we drive to Canada. Even then, I don’t think they sell gallons in Canada anymore, so it doesn’t matter.
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  12. Engineers are practical people, not missionaries, for the most part.
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  13. It’s math geek talk.
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  14. Accuracy does not depend on units. The foot is a well-defined unit and you know that. Your argument is disingenuous.
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  15. What do you mean? You could use Km/l if you preferred. It’s a reasonable way to represent fuel economy.
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  16. Not our (USA) fault. The Imperial System was introduced half a century after the American Revolution. The reason there is a difference is that, in the 18th century, a “gallon” was not a fixed volume, but was a standard container for some liquid. There were different gallons for different liquids. The USA used the British wine gallon as a unit of volume for all liquids.
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  17. No, I think they all need to keep right on the road as well. And use 60 Hz electric power.
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  18. US engineers find it useful, or it wouldn’t exist. Why do some people care how others do their own work? Live and let live is a better way.
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  19. His point, though, has nothing to do with units.
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  20. It shows that they do not know we do not use Imperial units. Canada used to use Imperial gallons. The US never did.
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  21. The United States adopted the metric system in 1866. We have always been a party to the development of SI.
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  22. The United States is bimetral. Our people are free to use whichever system of units serves their purpose.
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  23. If it were a “complete mess” it would have held back industrial development, but it didn’t.
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  24. I have never met anyone who was confused by “gas” as a shorthand for “gasoline.”
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  25. Don’t you mean “... with firearms...full stop”?
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  26. Sophistry. The fact that US Customary units are defined relative to metric units is of concern only to metrologists. Which units we use and how we use them does not depend on how they are formally defined.
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  27. The United States has never used the Imperial system. We are bimetral. Our official units are US Customary and metric.
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  28. We (in the USA) don’t use Imperial, and you mean “SI,” not “IS.” When you can’t get the details right, your arguments lose credibility.
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  29. and milliHelens.
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  30. “Economy” means management of resources.
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  31. The mixed unit thing is explicable. I have explained it elsewhere in this forum.
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  32. The United States did not change the gallon. In colonial times, the gallon was not a fixed unit of volume. There were different gallons for different products. The United States adopted the British wine gallon as a standard unit of volume. Fifty years later, Great Britain introduced the Imperial System, which standardized a different gallon. The United States were not a part of the Empire, so just kept doing what we were doing.
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  33. A US gallon is 3.7854 liters (approximately).
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  34. In many situations, you can think of a liter as being about a quart, but nobody should be taught that they are equal.
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  35. He’s just trying to come up with new topics which allow him to showcase his computational skills.
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  36. Units don’t have an expiration date.
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  37. The United States adopted the metric system in 1866, before most nations. We participated in the Convention du Mètre in 1875 and in the development of the metric system ever since. We defined our Customary units relative to metric units in 1893.
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  38. Jason isn’t promoting change here, he is educating.
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  39. I get better mpg than the sticker value. People think those numbers are bogus because they don’t drive the same pattern that is used for the test. If they drive too fast on the highway, they will lower their mpg. The sticker numbers are useful for comparing one vehicle to another, not for predicting your mileage.
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  40. You are free to use metric units and you may keep time any way you please. I keep the clock in my truck on Pacific Standard Time.
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  41. The Imperial System did not exist in thecolonial era. It was introduced half a century after the American Revolution.
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  42. The United States adopted the metric system in 1866. You are free to use it as you please. The metric standards are our standards, too. The United States has participated in developing them since 1875.
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  43. He isn’t being dishonest just because he’s discussing something which doesn’t fit your situation. EE is not produced for your sole benefit.
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  44. His point here doesn’t really have anything to do with the system of units. Units are arbitrary.
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  45. The models with poor mileage have higher profit margins, that’s all.
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  46. That’s right. Good point.
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  47. Thankfully, we do not use Imperial units in the USA.
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  48. Yes, companies with fleets have bean counters who can figure it out.
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  49. Good thing we use US Customary units in the USA instead of Imperial.
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  50. Replacing the Silverado with a Chevy Colorado is even better. Mine gets 28 mpg on trips.
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  51. They aren’t really doubled, though. Mechanics who work only on relatively new automobiles have a complete set of metric sockets and wrenches, but not SAE. Mechanics who work only on equipment built with SAE hardware do not necessarily have metric sockets and wrenches. Wrenches and sockets are not all tools, anyway. The notion that having more tool choices affects the environment is silly.
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  52. The United States has never used the Imperial System, and if you think US Customary is random, then you are uninformed. But we already knew that.
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  53.  @smudent2010  — The Imperial System was introduced by Great Britain to the Commonwealth half a century after the American Revolution. The United States, not a part of the Commonwealth, never adopted it. That is why the US Customary gallon differs from the Imperial gallon. This is an elementary fact in the history of the development of units of measure.
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  54. We have no rule which requires that all units be directly related in some simple way. We use Hp where it is convenient and kW where it is convenient.
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  55. MPG is a sensible unit for an individual driving one vehicle.
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  56. You haven’t watched EE much, it seems.
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  57. I have a hypothesis that the reason for this oddity is that modern automobiles will compute the fuel economy for you. But they will only give you a choice of metric or Imperial (or US). There is no mixed unit capability, so you would have to compute it the old-fashioned way.
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  58. PSI is a convenient scale for tire pressure. I can’t see that changing.
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  59. Fahrenheit degrees of temperature, for one. The international foot (inch) and pound. The US dollar.
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  60. The United States adopted the metric system in 1866. Now that technology permits it, a US-made vehicle can likely display metric units on the dash if the driver prefers.
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  61. It isn’t weird. It’s just unfamiliar to anyone who is accustomed to a different convention. They are equivalent.
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  62. It doesn’t affect the rest of the world, so we don’t understand why you care, and we don’t care that you don’t understand our ways.
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  63. You are missing the significance of a single vehicle’s contribution to fuel consumption of a fleet of vehicles with varying fuel consumption rates.
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  64. It’s even easier when your vehicle displays it. I have a real-time fuel consumption display, a 50-mile average, and a trip average.
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  65. No, accuracy does not depend on units. Neither does precision, which is probably what you meant. US machinists work to a precision of ten-thousandths of an inch, for example.
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  66. Biden has nothing to do with this. Our presidents don’t dictate such things.
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  67. The United States uses US Customary units.
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  68. The only difficulty with mpg for US drivers has been the use of the Imperial gallon in Canada. But now Canada has changed to le litre, and modern automobiles compute the mpg for you, so no problem. This episode seems a bit contrived because you need a fleet to illustrate your point. Perhaps a more practical metric is range per tank of gasoline. For a long time, it seemed to me that cars all seemed to be designed to go 300 miles on a tank. But my newest ride has a range of 600 miles if driven carefully. That’s a great number when taking a trip through unknown territory. By the way, how is a gallon “weird”.
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  69. Yes. Thankfully, we use US Customary units. I hate that Imperial gallon/pint!
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  70. We use US Customary units, not Imperial. We use them because they are convenient. We also use metric units. Both are legal.
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  71.  @allansmith7305  —It’s 128 fluid ounces US. The fluid ounce differs as well as the gallon.
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