Compass? Km/L?

You can install a compass if you like, this one is nice and would fit on the dash quite nicely.

 

In Australia we use litres per 100 kilometres, that is the global standard or SI unit.
The UK uses imperial gallons which are 20 fluid ounces as opposed to the 20% smaller US gallon invented by snake oil salesmen. Miles on land are miles, same everywhere backward enough to still be using them. I think only the UK and USA. The UK sell things in metric like petrol and milk but are too tight to change speed limits and miles posts to kilometres. The only mile that is any different is a nautical mile which is 1.85200 kilometres as opposed to a mile which is 1.609344 kilometres

Most of the world uses SI units but Japan uses kilometres per litre.

Yes, most of the world spells kilometre not kilometer which would be a gauge rather than a distance, like an hourmeter.

Wouldn't that brass compass look great on that big flat dash of a Prius?

Hybrid truck? talk to your local Hino dealer. Hino is a Toyota brand.

 

Definately not engineered by women I miss the compass. Women use the compass much in the way we actually ask
for directions.:cheer2:

 

Well it just demands some getting used to.
I think the only advantage of l/100km is that it will show 0 when fuel injection is cut, wherease mpg or km/l would require an infinite value which would somehow be less accurate than an instantaneous 0l/100km.

Apart from that specific case, I agree that km/l is more intuitive (once you get used to it).

 

In the U.S. there are 128 fluid ounces in a U.S. gallon.

Tom

 

I think the poster was referring to 20oz to the imperial pint vs. 16oz to the US pint. Making the US gallon 128oz vs. the imperial gallon at 160oz.

:bored: Don't you just love conversions? :bored:

 

I have a app for that.

 

As someone who is comfortable with both the English and metric units, I think one is not necessarily better than another. You should use the unit your local pump is using. If you pump is in gallons, it is easier to think in gallons. If your pump is in Liters, think in liters. I don't see why people can't think in both units. Why can't the people think in two scales (metric and English)? You can pretty much cover most of the world with only two scales. No need to get all worked up about which is superior. Let people do what they want.

As for the spelling of liter vs. litre. I would have thought that the more logical people would prefer liter which is spelled phonetically. Isn't that more logical.

Just to avoid people stereotyping us U.S. citizens, my wife and I are each fluent in three languages. It is very common in the U.S. now. Most of my friends know at least two.

 

Given that it was Pat, it's not surprising that he was talking about pints.

Tom

 

Patsparks is pretty much answered your question but being a Brit/Pom I'll clarify some additional info.

My Prius climate control is metric. My speedo is in miles per hour but with a switch to change to km/hour. The fuel consumption is measured in mpg and IS based on UK gallons (4.5 litres compared to 3.7 litres for a US gallon) and there is no option to change this to metric. It could be a dealer option to change mpg to litres/100km as our Irish neighbours use metric fully, yet this is the only difference between UK & Irish Prii. Also, the speedo reads about 5 mph or 10% over the actual speed you're going. This is some weird United Nations mandate! Check out [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedometer]Speedometer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Oh and I believe commonwealth countries (Oz, NZ & Canada) did use UK gallons decades ago before they turned metric. I also believe we as a country would have gone fully metric ages ago if it wasn't for the French and the EU continually hassling us to do so - I mean, you've got to resist whatever the French hassle you to do don't you!

 

There's nothing wrong with the imperial (or English) system. "Metric" was a genius marketing name for what's basically just the French system.

L/100km may be metric (French), but the important part is that it's a consumption value, not a mileage value. It is more logical to look at consumption, but then it's a less-is-better value, and marketing types prefer to use more-is-better values.

We could use Gal/100mi just as easily.

 

Why metric is better? simple - because we have 10 fingers and it is easier to count in decimals rather than in base 12, for example.
1 foot is 12 inch, and 1 mile is what? 120 inches? 1200 inches? no, is 5280 inches; and 1in is how many mil? 1000 - there must be a mistake, oh no, it is exactly 1000mil...how many mil in 1 ft - that's easy this time - 12000! (guess what, thank goodness mils are in base 10) - try to calculate how many inches are 3.4 feet without fractions and a pocket calculator in a few secs and let me know when you are done. How are you tall? 5ft11in? how many inches is that? wait, let me think...
And you cannot even really use a calculator - because 1.9feet are actually what? 1ft and 9in or 1ft and 90% of 12in - which is what?

I am 1.76meters, how many cm? 176 - done.

You have 2 pieces of wood - one is 3/4in and the other one is 5/8in - how much is the total length? in feet please.............I am still waiting for an answer....
You have 2 pieces of wood - one is 30.403 cm in length and one 26.00cm - how long is the total length? In meters? 0.56403m or 56.403cm - done.

And don't even get me started on fluids - 1 gallon? 8 pints or 128 oz - that is base what? 8? 128? you have 2.5 pints, how much is that in oz?
2.5 liters? 2500ml or 250cl or whatever you want - add or remove a zero....

Even for weight is a mess - 1 pound is how many oz? how many stones? 16 oz or 0.07143 stone - wow, that's helpful - how many stones are 18oz?...

And US and UK system are not even the same. (I honestly smile when I see all the back and forth about imperial and US MPG values on some posts...).

The metric (international) system (SI) is more practical in all mathematical operations, since our worldwide numbering system is a base 10 positional system (thank arabs!). (and yes again - we have 10 fingers, not 12).

I don't think there is much more to say - it is not about "superiority" - it is a matter of practicality and usability. I am very tolerant on many things, and I tend to convert, as a service to my US Prius friends, my "weird" metrical numbers (km/h? what is that?) to the US system (sorry UK guys, you are the minority and I am not posting my L/100km in UK MPG...1 conversion is enough) but if there is one thing that is screwed up completely and should be left in a museum for good is the imperial/british "system" (BTW, can that be called a system at all?).

The imperial system is base 12 (at least for length) or base something else for other units, and it is clearly a mess to use.
This is why it is also not used in the scientific world. It is not consistent and not practical.

Now....:focus:
As for the OP, in Germany the Prius shows L/100km. Whereas for example in Italy it shows km/L. I don't know why the difference. I find km/L more intuitive, like mpg, because at the pump I buy liters, not portions of "100km". And I can easily calculate how much is the autonomy if I know the fuel consumption is in km/L - but if I have L/100km, that's not really that easy (and this has nothing to do with the metric system). I need to thank the germans for that - I am pretty sure they use L/100km because it is more "accurate" when you moving without fuel (0L/100km, not infinte km/L). But when you stay still and the ICE runs, the Prius shows 0L/100km, which is "correct" but not accurate. For this reason VW shows for example L/hr...oh well...