PETROL OR DIESEL?? if a car travels 71 miles per gallon.......?

Question

if a diesel car travels at roughly 71 miles per gallon and diesel costs £1.30litre and a petrol car travels rougly 51 miles per gallon and costs £1.18litre, which car would be cheaper to run???

Answer 1

petrol is cheeper

Answer 2

Lover...is quite right.

His calculations are sopt on, with the information you gave.

Remember that a US Gal is 3.8 litres (near enough), and an Imperial British Gallon is close enough to 4.55 litres, so make sure you know which one you are using to get real cost.  Your question uses STG for prices, so I would assume the volume measurement should be in Imp. Gal, not the US. Gal that angelabe...suggests.

This is why British and US mpg figures will vary for the same car and testing standard: the Imp.Gal. is a greater volume.

Still, the diesel car travels 39.2% further on fuel that costs a little over 10% more for the same amount.  looks like an easy diesel win.  Remember, this does not account for the often higher purchase costs for diesel vehicles (over their petrol equivalent), and diesel sevicing costs may be higher: do your homework.  Driving style is more likely to affect a petrol car, and to a greater degree.

Katie, you don't neeed to use USD to use miles: where do you think the mile came from?  Britain!  And the Pound is not "Europe Money", they use mostly the Euro, or other currencies for the few nations that are not part of the EU, like Switzerland.

Answer 3

if you want the easy answer, just do the math: diesel = 1.30 x 3.78 = L4.91 per gallon, so, 4.91 / 71 m = 0.069 per mile. petrol = 1.18 x 3.78 = L4.46 per gallon, so 4.46/51 = 0.087 per mile. you would be saving almost two cents (or pennys) per mile with diesel.

But, it is not as easy as math suggests. It depends on how you drive, how much yo do it, if you do it in city or highways and the weather you drive in. Diesel is better if you do lots of mileage on highways, if your trips are long enough as to get the vehicle warm and if you don't care to much about emmisons. Petrol, on the other hand, is better for city driving, and when you have to make short distances various times a day or you don't go too much to highways. Petrol also (at least here) is less contaminant than diesel.

Answer 4

First, you have to get the liters converted to gallons.  There are 3.85 liters in a gallon so I multiplied the price of fuel per liter by 3.85.  Then, I divided each amount by the number of miles per gallon to get the figures below.

Diesel: .0704 per mile

Petrol:  .089 per mile

Diesel is cheaper, but not by much.

Answer 5

The diesel only cost 10% more.

But the diesel goes 39% farther per gallon or liter.

So the diesel is cheaper.

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The guy above is wrong: All that pounds, liters and gallons means nothing.  What matters is the relative cost vs. relative distance traveled.

Good Luck...

Answer 6

first of all this is some math question. and you have to convert the europe money into american dollars to work with miles. the pertrol would definatly be cheaper to run, but the diesel would run longer on 71 miles per gallon while the petrol runs only on 51 miles per gallon. the thing is: diesel cost more but runs on more miles per gallon BUT, petrol cost less and runs on less miles per gallon, so think about what matters to you more cost or miles per gallon?