Monday, April 29, 2013

Calculating litres per 100 kilometres for country driving

The fuel consumption of a vehicle differs considerably between city driving and country driving. In the Petrol Cost Calculator I've set the standard fuel consumption for city driving for my Toyota Avensis to be 11.11 L/100 km. Whilst a good estimate is that a car will drive around 50% further on the same amount of fuel when driving in the country, it is good to determine an actual figure.

To determine an actual fuel efficiency figure record how many litres you use and the kilometres travelled for a country trip. (Averaging over a couple of full tanks of petrol can provide a  more accurate value.) Then enter the fuel used in litres and the distance travelled in kilometres into the Calculate Litres Per 100 km option on the Petrol Cost Calculator to determine your fuel efficiency.

For example on our recent trip from Melbourne to South Australia, for one leg of the trip from Victor Habor to Hamilton, I recorded the fuel usage of 40.48 L for 541.4 km. That means for country travelling the Toyota Avensis was achieving a fuel efficiency of 7.48 L/100 km. Out of interest, above I said you get around 50% more distance when driving in the country as compared to the city. If we multiply 7.48 by 1.5 (50% more) we get a figure of 11.22 which is very close to the figure I use for city driving.

Also out of interest, the cheapest fuel at this time was in Melbourne at around $1.30. The dearest fuel was in Hamilton Victoria and Kingston SE South Australia at around $1.53, with Victor Harbor being $1.44 and if I recall correctly, Mount Gambier was similar to Victor Harbor. I decided when leaving Melbourne I had used a quarter of a tank but would fill up in Hamilton. Horsham has a reputation of being an expensive location to refuel but I wasn't sure of Hamilton. A few dollars can be saved by avoiding filling up towards central Victoria but the few dollars difference is hard to justify the effort.

Kelvin Eldridge
Online Connections
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
Call 0415 910 703 for computer support.
Servicing Templestowe, Doncaster, Eltham and the surrounding area.

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