The number of gallons of gas consumed per mile depends on the vehicle's fuel economy, typically measured in miles per gallon (MPG). To find gallons per mile, you take the reciprocal of MPG:
Gallons per mile=1MPG\text{Gallons per mile}=\frac{1}{\text{MPG}}Gallons per mile=MPG1
For example, if a car gets 25 MPG (which is around the average fuel economy for new vehicles in the U.S.), it uses:
125=0.04 gallons per mile\frac{1}{25}=0.04\text{ gallons per mile}251=0.04 gallons per mile
This means the car consumes 0.04 gallons of gas for every mile driven
. To put it in perspective:
- A car with 10 MPG uses 0.1 gallons per mile.
- A car with 15 MPG uses about 0.067 gallons per mile.
- A car with 30 MPG uses about 0.033 gallons per mile.
Fuel consumption per mile decreases as MPG increases, but the savings diminish at higher MPG levels due to the "MPG Illusion"
. If you want to calculate your own vehicle's gallons per mile:
- Record the miles driven.
- Measure the gallons of gas used.
- Divide gallons used by miles driven to get gallons per mile.
Or equivalently, divide miles driven by gallons used to get MPG, then take the reciprocal for gallons per mile
. In summary, gallons of gas per mile = 1 divided by your vehicle's MPG. For an average U.S. car with about 25 MPG, this is roughly 0.04 gallons per mile.
