What's the average of 5 MPG and 10 MPG?
The math isn't quite obvious to me, but if you go out camping and get 5 MPG on the way to the campground and turn around and get 10 MGP on the way back, your average MPG won't be 7.5 as you would expe...
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Not true:
100 miles; used 20 gallons = 5mpg
100 miles; used 10 gallons = 10mpg
200 miles; used 30 gallons = 6.67mpg
100 miles; used 20 gallons = 5mpg
200 miles; used 20 gallons = 10mpg
300 miles; used 40 gallons = 7.5mpg
100 miles; used 20 gallons = 5mpg
300 miles; used 30 gallons = 10mpg
400 miles; used 50 gallons = 8mpg
200 miles; used 20 gallons = 10mpg
300 miles; used 20 gallons = 15mpg
500 miles; used 40 gallons = 12.5mpg
You can average them if the GALLONS USED is the same - not the distance. The gallons used is the denominator - you have to have a common denominator in order to simply average the numerator.
EDIT: the post I was responding to just simply disappeared. Someone had posted that you could average the two MPGs together as long as the distance was exactly the same for each mpg calculation. Guess they figured out their error.
100 miles; used 20 gallons = 5mpg
100 miles; used 10 gallons = 10mpg
200 miles; used 30 gallons = 6.67mpg
100 miles; used 20 gallons = 5mpg
200 miles; used 20 gallons = 10mpg
300 miles; used 40 gallons = 7.5mpg
100 miles; used 20 gallons = 5mpg
300 miles; used 30 gallons = 10mpg
400 miles; used 50 gallons = 8mpg
200 miles; used 20 gallons = 10mpg
300 miles; used 20 gallons = 15mpg
500 miles; used 40 gallons = 12.5mpg
You can average them if the GALLONS USED is the same - not the distance. The gallons used is the denominator - you have to have a common denominator in order to simply average the numerator.
EDIT: the post I was responding to just simply disappeared. Someone had posted that you could average the two MPGs together as long as the distance was exactly the same for each mpg calculation. Guess they figured out their error.
