Decoding Electric Car MPG

With Kilowatt-Hours, Small Is Beautiful

Published: 12/21/2010 - by Paul Seredynski, Senior Editor, Auto Observer

The Nissan Leaf's EPA window sticker touts "99 miles per gallon" in large font. Since the Leaf is a fully electric car and does not burn gasoline, this might seem odd. But look more closely and you'll see the Leaf's "99" is actually an mpg-equivalent (mpg-e) figure, which is the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) way of converting the power used by an electric vehicle (EV) into a term familiar to most Americans. This 99 mpg-e number is ultimately more useful for comparing energy consumption than fuel costs, but we'll decode the EPA's electric-car mpg stats and explain what it means ... Back to article

By rbdiamond1
on 01/10/11
3:49 PM PST

The article misses a major point, which is the total cost of ownership. An electric motor has no oil changes, etc. I would like to see an analysis that calculates typical maintenance of an internal combustion engine vs. an electric motor.

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By iisi50mhz
on 04/05/11
8:15 PM PST

If the SI abbreviation for "meters" is "m" and the standard (Imperial unit) abbreviation for "miles" is "mi.", then shouldn't "kWh/100m" be interpreted as "kWh per 100 meters" and "kWh/100 mi." be used for "kWh per 100 miles"?

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