>In an attempt to show how much fuel (and carbon) could be saved by taking the most inefficient vehicles off the road, the New York State Senate has introduced a bill which would require cars to have a gallons per 100 miles rating rather than a miles per gallon (mpg) rating – green.autoblog.com. So, what is the difference? Let’s first talk about mpg. Purely in terms of how much fuel is burned over 10,000 miles, a jump from 10 mpg to 11 mpg gives the same savings as going from 33 mpg to 50 mpg. To most people, a jump in mpg of 17 is much more impressive than 1 mpg. In each case however, you have reduced your consumption by about 100 gallons – green.autoblog.com. What a let down!
A more accurate calculation for how efficient your car is would be a gallons per 100 miles (g/100m) reading. For example a car getting 18 mpg becomes 5.5 g/100m as compared to a car with an mpg rating of 28 becomes 3.6 g/100m – green.autoblog.com. In this way, consumers are able to see exactly how much they are consuming rather than how far they are traveling. This is the intent of the bill in the NY State Senate – to show consumers how much fuel would be saved by taking most inefficient vehicles off the road. New York, there’s nothin’ you can’t do!