Madan in USMA 14324 asked: >Kilometer (km) is the unit of measure for distance and >liter (l) is the unit of measure for liquid volume and > >km/l makes sense or at least l/km. > >I dont know how the liters / 100 km came into >picture. Sadly Europeans are using it. With the exception of the automobile, it is usual to express fuel consumption per kilometre, or per hour, That applies to trains, airplanes, lawn mowers, etc. An automobile typically consumes 0.1 litre per kilometre. In order to get more substantial numbers it is customary in many countries to measure automobile fuel consumption in litres per 100 kilometres. I would prefer litres per megametre, L/Mm. If you want to estimate how much gasoline you will need for a specific trip L/Mm is more convenient for calculation than km/L. On the other hand if you want to know how far you can go on a tankful km/L is a more conveniet number than L/Mm. Joseph B. Reid 17 Glebe Road West Toronto M5P 1C8 Tel. 416 486-6071
