Time does not factor in at all, unless you assume a constant speed and a constant amount of resistance (via wind, incline, terrain etc). Under those conditions you can likely say the FEH engine consistently gets 40 MPG. As speed is constant and as distance = Rate x Time, if that constant speed happened to be 40 mph than in one hour you would go 40 miles. Thus one gallon per hour or 1/60 of a gallon per minute. It takes an awful lot of assumptions to pull this off...

 

The reverse is used in aircraft. Fuel consuption is calculated in gallons per hour. You cant really use miles per gallon because you are flying in an air mass that is moving,i.e. headwinds, tailwinds, crosswinds, etc. So someone asks how far can you go you might say 4 hrs. but is that 600 miles or 800? depends on the weather.

 

Before I purchased a Honda Civic Hybrid I calculated that I would need to drive approximately 100 miles/day 5 days/week to offset the premium of the Hybrid over the conventional Civic. It will take 3-5 years of heavy driving to have the Hybrid overtake the conventional Civic from a strictly monetary perspective. Those who drive less may actually come out better economically using a gas powered Civic.

Wondering if one of those 2008 VW TDI's might hold some promise in balancing the costs of driving a fuel sipper.

Even paying a premium to drive a Hybrid there is a sense of pride that one feels when you are lowering your pollution footprint.

 

Honestly, I would have to say yes, in part, because I'm always doing tests and experiments. I try to do this on my daily routine, but sometimes I have an itch ( data wise ) that just needs to be scratched... now! So I go out for a short drive to get answers.

Since this car uses half the gas of my previous car, I'm still well ahead of the game though! But you are right, I've probably used more than half the gas of the previous car, given the same number of months, and the converse tends to be true, a gas guzzler tends to discourage "pleasure drives".

 

A friend of mine just bought a Scion Xb for his florest delivery vehical. His previous vehical was a BIG ford van. 10 mpg, he now gets 22 so he is a happy camper. The savings are more than making the payment by about $100 a month.

 

But if all city, he could get 40 MPG with a FEH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

 

Yea he took delivery before I told him about my FEH

 

Gallons per minute=1/[Miles/gallon]*Miles/hour*1 hour/60 minutes

Just some unit analysis. So Gallons per Minute at a certain time can be calculated from knowing MPG and MPH at a certain time. You need both, as a certain MPG reading will not always correpsond with a ceratin MPH reading, a certain MPH reading will not always correspond to a certain MPG reading.