I'm sure it was a few times.

you know you're a Republican when you claim to be for fiscal sanity and self-sufficiency but advocate a permanent dependency on gulf states in lieu of supporting American tech companies and auto makers.

 

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<edit> Whoops. Thought I had a sensible rejoinder, but, I don't. Except that your method using different quantities to calculate an average. It doesn't work that way.

 

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I see no problem with pushing fuel efficient cars. For one it lessons our dependence on foreign oil. There are plenty of people that drive gas guzzlers that could make do without if they wanted to. Not sure why so many of you see this as a negative thing.

I have rode in the back of a prius before, and it seemed to have as much room as my subaru does.

 

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You're stuck on the assumption that you're correct and you're missing what would be perfectly obvious to anyone who didn't already commit himself to the wrong answer.

Go to another forum and pose this question exactly as phrased: "4 cars drive a total of 400 miles and they consume 8 gallons of gas in doing so. What is the average MPG for the 4 cars?"

If anyone answers 80 you can pick my icon for a week.

 

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Obviously paulg already committed himself to the wrong answer so he has to semantic his way out of it and switch it up a bit...


SHOCKED!

 

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Show us what you look like when you get into a crash in one of those cars. The better the gas milage the more dangerous the car as it is mostly a weight thing.

That said I am waiting for Michelle Obama to make the statement that if everyone lost 50 pounds they would get better mileage in their vehicles.

 

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To figure out miles per gallon, each car has to use the same amount of gas and then you find the average number of miles they get for that gallon. In you example, car A contributes 5 gallons to the average while cars B, C, and D only contribute one gallon each. That skews the average way off.

mpg = (A+B+C+D)/4, where we know mpg is 50, A=20, and B=C=D.

So 50 = (20+3B)/4

200 = 20+3B
180 = 3B
60 = B=C=D

You are making the mileage fixed and the gallons are the variable. When you want to find mpg, you have to keep the gallons fixed and the miles are the variable.

Think about it. If we leave everything the same, except we bump Car A up to 25 mpg, that would, using your method, bring the average up to around 57 mpg. Bumping one car up 5 mpg raises the average by 7 mpg? You want to go with that? Let's lower Car A to 10 mpg. That would work out to an average of about 31 mpg. So, lowering one car's mpg by 10 lowers the average of the 4 cars by almost 20?

Using the actual formula for finding an average, we'd get, with A = 25, and the other cars staying at 60, the average would be a realistic 51 mpg. If we lower A to 10 mpg, we'd lower the average to about 47+ mpg.

If you pose the problem this way...we need to end up with an average of 50 and one of the 4 components is 20 and the other three are all equal to each other, what number gives you that average? I'd be happy to do a icon bet. Though, you might want to change the conditions. I think you WANT people to say 80. Whereas, I want people to say 60.

To make it simple enough for even you not to obfuscate your way out. Take two cars, our 20 mpg car and a 100 mpg car. They each go 100 miles. They use a total of 6 gallons. Are you claiming that those two cars average out to 33.3 mpg? The auto companies better pray that you never get put in charge of compliance.

 

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Stangely enough in Europe we can design and manufacture cars (yes even hybrid cars) that have better and better MPG every year!

Of course if you're a total idiot and can't even imagine technical progress cause you think a car can't perform with less than 500 HP and drinking a gallon per mile, then yeah, you're going to find it hard to wrap your head around ideas like this.

 

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No need to get fancy for good mpg..

 

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