why is L/100km our standard?

[Sonbuster]

americans have mpg, shouldn't we atleast have km/l?

wouldn't that be so much easier to visualize.

when researching for car fuel economy i'd rather much prefer mpg over L/100km.

so why /how did we adopt the l/100km standard?

[TrEvOrLiCioUs]

Ever heard of something called the metric system?


Same reason our speeds are in km/h, our gas is sold in L.

[ichpen]

Because we're not American....

So you'd rather have 0.342l per kilometer for example?? Plus it would be quite difficult to gauge to any sort of precision exactly what your per kilometer consumption is.

This is a metric based system that has been around for longer than I can remember. The rest of the world uses it bar the US.

[khtm]

Because that's the international standard. The US is backwards from everyone else.

[Sonbuster]

sorry pls let me clarify:

km/L

is what i'm looking for.

not L/Km as some of you may have misread.

so a car consuming 10l/100km goes about 10km/l

if it's 5l/100km the vehicle goes 20km/l

i hope that helps.

[kmltick]

Because there's the US gallon and the Imperial Gallon which are 2 different #s..

When you go to a dealership they'll post MPG but it's Imperial Gallon (not US)
The imperial gallon is larger than the US gallon so you can post a better mpg rating.

If you go by L/100km you don't have any of that tomfoolery.

I personally I like the L/100km.... and as you and the rest of the world knows, dividing by 10 is much easier than 3.78541178 litres... or 1.67km

[JimG]

I think his point is that it's easier to visualize fuel consumption when it's given by distance (Miles or Kilometers) per fuel volume (Gallons or Liters); not a complaint against the metric system.

It's easier to calculate differences in price when it's given in liters/100km, since you can just figure the difference between two cars and use the current gas price to figure out how much/less more money it would cost you to travel 100km. Knowing that one car might get you 4km more distance isn't really that useful to terms of comparing the actual cost.

[michelb]

L/100km is also arguably a more 'natural' way of thinking of consumption.

If you are going to drive to Montreal and so will be driving approx 400km (200 each way), if your car averages 11L/100km, you'll need 44L so roughly $60 of gas. Same thing can be said for regular usage (e.g. if you have 20km commute, it's your mileage / 5 ...)

In MPG, the same car would be 21.4 mpg so to figure out your gas usage, you have to take you distance (roughly 250 miles), divided that by your mpg and that will give you the amount of gas you need (11.6g) and then multiply that by price / gallon.

Obviously you can figure it out either way but to me, L/100km is a more instinctive conversion.

[western]

If you still want to comparison shop, use the google calculator to do the math for you.

Google km/L to mpg (http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=11+km%2FL+to+mpg&meta=)

[Sonbuster]

L/100km is also arguably a more 'natural' way of thinking of consumption.

If you are going to drive to Montreal and so will be driving approx 400km (200 each way), if your car averages 11L/100km, you'll need 44L so roughly $60 of gas. Same thing can be said for regular usage (e.g. if you have 20km commute, it's your mileage / 5 ...)

In MPG, the same car would be 21.4 mpg so to figure out your gas usage, you have to take you distance (roughly 250 miles), divided that by your mpg and that will give you the amount of gas you need (11.6g) and then multiply that by price / gallon.

Obviously you can figure it out either way but to me, L/100km is a more instinctive conversion.

Km/L is easy to calculate aswell

let's take your 11L/100km = 9.09 km/L

400km trip / 9.09km/L = 44 L

Km / L is also easier to calculate.

you gassed up 50L went for 500km . 500/50 = 10km/L done..that's your efficiency.

if i wanted L/100km. i would have to log onto a webiste and do the conversion, b/c i don't have time for this.

[Ryus]

if i wanted L/100km. i would have to log onto a webiste and do the conversion, b/c i don't have time for this.

It's not really that hard, you just need to divide the other way around:

If you traveledl 470 km and gased up 40 litres, you divide 40 by 470:

40/470 = 0.085106.....

multibly by 100 or just move the decimal place to the right 2 times and you get 8.51L/100km

[evolution921]

if i wanted L/100km. i would have to log onto a webiste and do the conversion, b/c i don't have time for this.

What I do after I fill up is if I drove 425.7km and filled 34.7L. I just calculate

34.7/4.257 = 8.2L/100km

It takes me 2 sec to calculate, I don't need a log or anything, I just need a calculator. I'm sure some people can do it in their head.

[B0000rt]

The issue here isn't being hard to calculate, but rather an issue of elementary school arithmetic.

[wong8egg]

This is exactly like why American employ Fahrenheit and we use Celsius.

If I remembered correctly, Canadian cars were right hand drive at the beginning like British, and we switched to left afterward because of American influence.

And I think the reason is because when the state founded, they want to set new standard for their new world, but i could be wrong.

[at1212b]

I would agree with the OP.

For example, I think most people want to know how much mileage they can get with a full tank of gas or how much litres they just put in Vs. define your distance first, then try to work backwards at how much I have to put in.

L/100km is also arguably a more 'natural' way of thinking of consumption.



Sure, the road trip thing with how much KMs you have to cover is maybe easier with the current L/100Km since the distance is already defined. But that assumes you are thinking in a way where you put your distance first and that distance is at least 100km. (the average folk my guess is do not like working with fractions)

I would say most people think how much gas they just put in and how far can I go, especially given today's high gas prices.

If your tank is 50 litres, its easier and likely more useful to just multiply that with the mileage you would get (similar to the way MPG is laid out) per litre of fuel.

ie. If I get 10 km for one litre, then a fill up at 50 litres x 10km = 500km on a full tank of gas I think is a more intuitive way of looking at things.

Or if I'm cheap/broke. I can only put in 5 litres today. How far can I go before I run out of gas or need to fill up. So based on a limited constrained budget, its more practical to see how much can/ be filled per paycheck which then determine how many kms can be travelled.

[malbadon]

wow. the number of people who are reading and responding to the subject without reading his actual comment is appalling....
He's not asking about the imperial system at all, he's asking why we use L/100km instead of a km/L type system like mpg.

The answer is we use it because it was the system chosen internationally by metric countries for fuel consumption.
The question of why they allowed that to become the standard instead of what would have made more sense (km/L) probably has a weird and odd answer.
I would guess that they wanted to avoid the appearance that mileage was somehow lower in metric (obviously not true, but people are stupid and simple and the L/100km system avoids the whole "but the mileage number in Canada is 1/4 what it is in the States" dumb type questions that would happen if there was a straight km/L to mpg number comparison)

A 7L/100km car gets 14.2km/L, a 15L/100km only gets 6.6km/L. Who's going to buy a car that costs $1.50 to drive 7km's? No one, but in peoples heads 15L/100km doesn't look as bad.

Semantics yes, but the way people think.

[ShadowVlican]

Because there's the US gallon and the Imperial Gallon which are 2 different #s..

When you go to a dealership they'll post MPG but it's Imperial Gallon (not US)
The imperial gallon is larger than the US gallon so you can post a better mpg rating.

If you go by L/100km you don't have any of that tomfoolery.
+1000

[zydus]

This ratio is given in common measures such as "liters per 100 kilometers" (L/100 km) (common in Europe and Canada or "miles per gallon" (mpg) (prevalent in USA, UK, and often in Canada , using their respective gallon measurements) or "kilometers per liter"(kmpl) (prevalent in Asian countries such as India and Japan).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency

I prefer km/litre myself since that is what i've grown up with in India.

[Sonbuster]

I would agree with the OP.

For example, I think most people want to know how much mileage they can get with a full tank of gas or how much litres they just put in Vs. define your distance first, then try to work backwards at how much I have to put in.



Sure, the road trip thing with how much KMs you have to cover is maybe easier with the current L/100Km since the distance is already defined. But that assumes you are thinking in a way where you put your distance first and that distance is at least 100km. (the average folk my guess is do not like working with fractions)

I would say most people think how much gas they just put in and how far can I go, especially given today's high gas prices.

If your tank is 50 litres, its easier and likely more useful to just multiply that with the mileage you would get (similar to the way MPG is laid out) per litre of fuel.

ie. If I get 10 km for one litre, then a fill up at 50 litres x 10km = 500km on a full tank of gas I think is a more intuitive way of looking at things.

Or if I'm cheap/broke. I can only put in 5 litres today. How far can I go before I run out of gas or need to fill up. So based on a limited constrained budget, its more practical to see how much can/ be filled per paycheck which then determine how many kms can be travelled.


thanks for agreeing with me i appreciate it.

to convert km/l to l/100km. i think you would simply divide by 100 in either units. for example 20 km/l = 5 l/100km , where as 4l/100km = 25km/L

simple enough, but it still remains redundant to convert to the L/100km step

for example.

knowing how much fuel is used and the amount of distance driven we know what the rate is km/l. done. to to convert it to L/100km we have to divide the km/l by 100 and we get the corresponding l/100km.

but i think that's an uncessary step, b/c km/l should be sufficient.
with km/l you can calculate 2 things off the fly:

how much can i go with x amount of gas
or how much gas do i need to go x amount of distance.

with the l/100km. it's a little more complicated to see.

[Sonbuster]

wow. the number of people who are reading and responding to the subject without reading his actual comment is appalling....
He's not asking about the imperial system at all, he's asking why we use L/100km instead of a km/L type system like mpg.

The answer is we use it because it was the system chosen internationally by metric countries for fuel consumption.
The question of why they allowed that to become the standard instead of what would have made more sense (km/L) probably has a weird and odd answer.
I would guess that they wanted to avoid the appearance that mileage was somehow lower in metric (obviously not true, but people are stupid and simple and the L/100km system avoids the whole "but the mileage number in Canada is 1/4 what it is in the States" dumb type questions that would happen if there was a straight km/L to mpg number comparison)

A 7L/100km car gets 14.2km/L, a 15L/100km only gets 6.6km/L. Who's going to buy a car that costs $1.50 to drive 7km's? No one, but in peoples heads 15L/100km doesn't look as bad.

Semantics yes, but the way people think.

i think the bigger the number the better.

for example
car goes 10l/100km vs a 5l/100km
difference is 5l/100km

convert that to km/l and you get

10 km/ l or 20km/l
that difference is now 10

also with km/l the higher the number the better where as l/100km lower is better.

consuming public normally denote that the larger the number the better the product.

[UrbanPoet]

americans have mpg, shouldn't we atleast have km/l?

wouldn't that be so much easier to visualize.

when researching for car fuel economy i'd rather much prefer mpg over L/100km.

so why /how did we adopt the l/100km standard?

I dont think its that hard...
Gas is around $1.30 right now...
your typical mid-size sedan usually takes 10L/100km...
so it would cost you $13 to drive 100km...
The distance to go from 1 end of Toronto to the other is roughly 30km...

[BartBandy]

I think km/L would be a better standard, but everyone uses L/100km, so that's what I use.

[chriswalsh]

I agree, would rather have km/L. But the 'Canadian' way is L/100km so I just use the alternative... MPG (us gallon).

[nickctn]

I read an article in the newspaper recently saying that it was easier the efficiency improvements between 2 vehicles using L/100km.

For example, which vehicle would you replace between these 2 in order to save more fuel, assuming similar usage between the 2:
-A truck that does 10 mpg and that you can replace it with another truck doing 20 mpg
-A car that does 15 mpg and that you can replace with another car that does 30 mpg

Simply looking at the mgp number a lot of people would choose to change the car since the difference in mpg is greater. However, when the numbers are given in L/100km, then it is clear that you should replace the truck in order to save more on fuel:

-Truck: 23.5L/100km to 11.75L/100km net saving 11.75L/100km
-Car: 15.6L/100km to 7.8L/100km net saving 7.8L/100km

[Evgeny]

I read an article in the newspaper recently saying that it was easier the efficiency improvements between 2 vehicles using L/100km.

For example, which vehicle would you replace between these 2 in order to save more fuel, assuming similar usage between the 2:
-A truck that does 10 mpg and that you can replace it with another truck doing 20 mpg
-A car that does 15 mpg and that you can replace with another car that does 30 mpg

Simply looking at the mgp number a lot of people would choose to change the car since the difference in mpg is greater. However, when the numbers are given in L/100km, then it is clear that you should replace the truck in order to save more on fuel:

-Truck: 23.5L/100km to 11.75L/100km net saving 11.75L/100km
-Car: 15.6L/100km to 7.8L/100km net saving 7.8L/100km

Which, coincidentally, is the exact reasoning that GM is using for sticking its two-mode hybrid in large trucks and pickups before the rest of the fleet.

As for original discussion, maybe I've just used it my whole life, but L/100km just comes naturally to me. L/km would probably work just as well, though in Canada most distances are more on the scale of 100km rather than 1 km. MPG and km/L on the other hand, I'm not a fan of. Seems a bit backwards - I usually know how much distance I need to travel and fill up based on that, not litres I need to complete the trip. L/(100)km makes that calculation easier in my mind.

[ES_Revenge]

wow. the number of people who are reading and responding to the subject without reading his actual comment is appalling....
Agreed. I was reading response after response thinking "WTF? :confused: "

Anyway, for me I've always hated L/100km--I think it's ********. Well it's easier nowadays that it's published a lot and on the internet and stuff, but before hand like say 10 years ago or so? When all the publications and information you read was MPG because it was all American? Well that's all that made sense to me because this is more of a comparative benchmark than anything.

And before we go on the metric tirade again, note that I really hate the imperial system and love the metric system by comparison. Still though L/100km I think is one stupid benchmark just due to history I think...

When we (or well when most people) think about fuel economy they are trying to compare to other cars. So as I said back before when most data you got about cars was from US publications... Before the internet was popular/"big" I for one had subscriptions to four US auto magazines, which was pretty much all the larger ones--Road & Track, Motor Trend, Car and Driver, and Automobile. All of this information was again, in MPG (US). So anytime someone came up to me talking about L/100km it was like they were speaking Japanese or something (which I don't speak, lol). In other words what good was one L/100km measurement on one car good for when all the other cars I knew about fuel economy for, I knew about in MPG?

To this day I still prefer US MPG ratings (for the above reasons) and I though I've grown to "understand" L/100km much better, I would also agree with the OP that I'd rather have km/L instead. Dividing by 100 of something is silly if you ask me.

[disordered]

"Posting a vehicle's fuel efficiency in "gallons per mile" rather than "miles per gallon" would help consumers make better decisions about car purchases and environmental impact, researchers from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business report in the June 20 issue of Science magazine."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2XSuw02vKA

http://nudges.wordpress.com/why-we-misunderstand-what-miles-per-gallon-ratings-are-telling-us/

[nickctn]

"Posting a vehicle's fuel efficiency in "gallons per mile" rather than "miles per gallon" would help consumers make better decisions about car purchases and environmental impact, researchers from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business report in the June 20 issue of Science magazine."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2XSuw02vKA

http://nudges.wordpress.com/why-we-misunderstand-what-miles-per-gallon-ratings-are-telling-us/

The Duke University study was the study that the article I read was referring too.

[VivienM]

My theory:

1. Americans are conditioned to expect "bigger is better". With MPG, the higher the number, the better.

2. There's a difference between FUEL ECONOMY (an absurd concept, measured in MILES PER GALLON, i.e. distance per quantity of fuel) and FUEL CONSUMPTION (measured in ... gallons per mile, i.e. fuel per quantity of distance).

Fuel economy, in my mind, is a silly idea conceptually.

Think about it this way: you are comparing two vehicles. Vehicle #1 requires 10L of fuel to travel a given distance. Vehicle #2 requires 15L to travel the same distance. Easy, no?

Now, switch it around. Vehicle #1 burns a given quantity of fuel in 100 km. Vehicle #2 burns that same quantity of fuel in 70 km. Why the hell do you care about how far you can get with a given quantity of fuel?!

[frogger]

Nice conversion link..
http://www.convertworld.com/en/fuel_consumption/Liters+per+100+km.html

[vistaway]

I agree with the OP. I would prefer KM/L.

I prefer to use http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm to compare MPG rather than the Canadian measurements, but that's my personal preference.

[ES_Revenge]

I read an article in the newspaper recently saying that it was easier the efficiency improvements between 2 vehicles using L/100km.

For example, which vehicle would you replace between these 2 in order to save more fuel, assuming similar usage between the 2:
-A truck that does 10 mpg and that you can replace it with another truck doing 20 mpg
-A car that does 15 mpg and that you can replace with another car that does 30 mpg

Simply looking at the mgp number a lot of people would choose to change the car since the difference in mpg is greater. However, when the numbers are given in L/100km, then it is clear that you should replace the truck in order to save more on fuel:

-Truck: 23.5L/100km to 11.75L/100km net saving 11.75L/100km
-Car: 15.6L/100km to 7.8L/100km net saving 7.8L/100km

Very interesting--you present a good point. Still though I think distance per single unit fuel is more useful (in my head anyway, lol). Most people are comparing vehicles against others as I mentioned, not looking at savings from one to another. But that certainly shows there are good applications of the other method/rating.

[Sonbuster]

My theory:

1. Americans are conditioned to expect "bigger is better". With MPG, the higher the number, the better.

2. There's a difference between FUEL ECONOMY (an absurd concept, measured in MILES PER GALLON, i.e. distance per quantity of fuel) and FUEL CONSUMPTION (measured in ... gallons per mile, i.e. fuel per quantity of distance).

Fuel economy, in my mind, is a silly idea conceptually.

Think about it this way: you are comparing two vehicles. Vehicle #1 requires 10L of fuel to travel a given distance. Vehicle #2 requires 15L to travel the same distance. Easy, no?

Now, switch it around. Vehicle #1 burns a given quantity of fuel in 100 km. Vehicle #2 burns that same quantity of fuel in 70 km. Why the hell do you care about how far you can get with a given quantity of fuel?!

so i could also argue. why the hell would you care how much fuel you consume in a given distance?
note that l/100km and km/l are exactly the same thing when divided by 100 you get one or the other.

it's just km/l is so much easier to derive and easier to use when determining a. how much you can go on x amount of fuel or b. how much fuel you'll for x amount of distance.

it's a much more user friendly rate.

[B0000rt]

I read an article in the newspaper recently saying that it was easier the efficiency improvements between 2 vehicles using L/100km.

For example, which vehicle would you replace between these 2 in order to save more fuel, assuming similar usage between the 2:
-A truck that does 10 mpg and that you can replace it with another truck doing 20 mpg
-A car that does 15 mpg and that you can replace with another car that does 30 mpg

Simply looking at the mgp number a lot of people would choose to change the car since the difference in mpg is greater. However, when the numbers are given in L/100km, then it is clear that you should replace the truck in order to save more on fuel:

-Truck: 23.5L/100km to 11.75L/100km net saving 11.75L/100km
-Car: 15.6L/100km to 7.8L/100km net saving 7.8L/100km

This is a very good explanation.

I want to use less fuel, so I buy a car with less L/100km rating.

[VivienM]

so i could also argue. why the hell would you care how much fuel you consume in a given distance?

Because, generally speaking, when you are driving, YOU ARE TRYING TO GET SOMEWHERE! Your goal is to minimize how much fuel it takes to get to that place, NOT to maximize how far you can go with a given amount of fuel.

e.g. You live 5 km away from your work. You want to know how much gas it will take to drive those 5 km!

Would you really approach the problem the other way? "Okay, I must burn at most 5 litres to go to work, so if I get this car, then I can work up to 15 km away from home, but if I get that other car, I'll have to quit my job and find a job that's closer"?

[woodstock827]

the L/100km was designed with fuel "consumption" in mind. Most people travel same distance each day. With L/100km (or L/km, but then you get lots of decimals) you know how much it costs for each trip. Incidentally, Hong Kong driver generally use $/km as their measurements although officially it's still L/100km.

[B0000rt]

Because, generally speaking, when you are driving, YOU ARE TRYING TO GET SOMEWHERE! Your goal is to minimize how much fuel it takes to get to that place, NOT to maximize how far you can go with a given amount of fuel.

e.g. You live 5 km away from your work. You want to know how much gas it will take to drive those 5 km!

Would you really approach the problem the other way? "Okay, I must burn at most 5 litres to go to work, so if I get this car, then I can work up to 15 km away from home, but if I get that other car, I'll have to quit my job and find a job that's closer"?
Hah, you're right, driving aimlessly isn't something someone usually does, unless you're Kramer and you're trying to go past the E mark :D

You should relatively always know where you are going, and that distance is fixed.

[Sonbuster]

Because, generally speaking, when you are driving, YOU ARE TRYING TO GET SOMEWHERE! Your goal is to minimize how much fuel it takes to get to that place, NOT to maximize how far you can go with a given amount of fuel.

e.g. You live 5 km away from your work. You want to know how much gas it will take to drive those 5 km!

Would you really approach the problem the other way? "Okay, I must burn at most 5 litres to go to work, so if I get this car, then I can work up to 15 km away from home, but if I get that other car, I'll have to quit my job and find a job that's closer"?

assuming your car goes 10km/l

5km / 10km/l = .5 L

Done

[B0000rt]

assuming your car goes 10km/l

5km / 10km/l = .5 L

Done
So?

I can do the same, assuming your car goes 10L/100km and 5kms

so 5km * 10L/100km = 50L/100 = 0.5L

Done.

So pretty much you're telling us that it's hard for you to divide something by 100?

I don't think you're actually thinking about what the units mean in a intuitive point of view.

I fail to see how "Bigger is better" when you want to minimize how much fuel you use.

[ES_Revenge]

Because, generally speaking, when you are driving, YOU ARE TRYING TO GET SOMEWHERE! Your goal is to minimize how much fuel it takes to get to that place, NOT to maximize how far you can go with a given amount of fuel.
LOLZ :lol: But the end result is the same, no? Like either you want to go further on the same gas or use less gas to go the same given distance. It's two ways of thinking about/saying the exact same thing.

For some people (like me and Sonbuster for example) it's easier to think about/understand it from one way, and then others (like you and B000rt for example) it seems it's easier to think about the other way.


I fail to see how "Bigger is better" when you want to minimize how much fuel you use.
Yep you do fail to see, heh. Nothing wrong with that though. Personally I don't think either one is really the "better" way of thinking about it.

Say we have some baskets and some apples and some baskets... You may want to know how many apples you can fit per basket so you can start collecting apples for the x number bakets you have. Or you might have x number of apples and want to figure out how many baskets you will need. In either case you're still coming down to how many apples fit in a basket, right?

What makes it more annoying for me is not only the switch to metric after years of being exposed to MPG (for the reasons I mentioned earlier) but the fact that you're changing the way of thinking about it too. It's certainly not impossible (as I said I've even grown accustomed to L/100km as well) but it's just a silly idea to do something like that IMO. Given us and the Americans are so "close" and share almost all the same cars and read many publications' reviews from both sides of the border, it would (and does) make more sense to me personally to leave it on the same page. Even if it has to be metric, I think km/l just makes it easier to follow both ways. Again though just me.

There's no "right" way here.

[B0000rt]

Fix your quote ^ I didn't say that :P

[hytong]

mileage (travel distance given fuel amount) => MPG
fuel consumption rate (fuel required given distance to cover) => L/100km

L/km for most ppl is harder than L/100km since most vehicles does not use a lot in a km, try to pump 0.06L after running a km vs pumping 6L after 100km
Think about a simple way to measure paper thickness / weight, etc

[JohnB]

I prefer carrots per fortnight.

[ES_Revenge]

Fix your quote ^ I didn't say that :P

LOL sorry, dunno how that happened! Fixed :)

[BartBandy]

As in any situation, it's good to ask, WWJD?

First, I think he would measure distance in cubits. But there were no cars in Jesus' time, only slaves who were whipped while pulling carts along crude roads. I'm confident Jesus would calculate "mileage" in cubits/whip. Or would that be whips/100 cubits?

Damn.

[Sonbuster]

So?

I can do the same, assuming your car goes 10L/100km and 5kms

so 5km * 10L/100km = 50L/100 = 0.5L

Done.

So pretty much you're telling us that it's hard for you to divide something by 100?

I don't think you're actually thinking about what the units mean in a intuitive point of view.

I fail to see how "Bigger is better" when you want to minimize how much fuel you use.


i can divide by a 100, but some ppl can't. it's a redundant step that's derived from km/L in the first place.

for example if you wanted to know how much L/100km your consumption is, you would find out what your mileage is [km's] and how much you gased up [L]. using those 2 variables you would find your km/l. if it were up to me i'd leave it at that, BUT for some reason, someone decided that wanted to do an extra calculation and divide the damn thing by 100 [L/100km] and make it the best damn thing since the wheel.


as for minimizing fuel, most ppl would rather MAXIMIZE the efficiency of the gas and make it go as FAR as possible.

[Sepiraph]

Americans are stupid to still be using the Imperial system, I mean even the British don't use them anymore.

Also L/100km is quite intuitive, much better than mpg.

[TT333]

lol, just read this thread and it gave me a headache...

funny how it sparked up so much interest...

[bst]

While km/l and l/100km is interchangeable, I think they serve different purposes. For km/l, you are trying to find out how far you can go with a tank. With l/100km, you are finding out how much you consume. They are equally easy to calculate, its a matter of what you want to find out.

[gordholio]

Americans are stupid to still be using the Imperial system, I mean even the British don't use them anymore.

Also L/100km is quite intuitive, much better than mpg.

Uh huh? Americans don't use the Imperial System. They didn't like it, so they modified it. Canada used to (and for some cases, still) use the Imperial System.
I still convert to real mpg (Imperial) when I figure out my mileage.
When you check out the grocery store flyers, you still see meat in price per lb, etc.
My point is that Canada has not (and probably never will) totally convert to metric in all cases.