mpg ceiling
 

Any chance of getting the 200 mpg limit raised?

No sorry. Unless you have an electric vehicle, 200 MPG isn't a realistic number. So we have the limit in place to keep vehicles with data entry errors from being way out line.

We can't support plug-in electric vehicles at this time. MPG isn't a true comparison of consumption with other vehicles.

I see that you have a Volt. I'm sorry, but we can't support it. You might have better luck at voltstats.net.

Voltstats doesn't let me record fuel costs, gasoline or electric.

You seem to be supporting the Prius Plug-In, another plug in hybrid vehicle, albeit PiP drivers struggle to achieve 200+ mpg.

As far as a comparison with other vehicles, gallons of gasoline consumed is still a valid comparison.

Why not remove the limit, or require a checkbox to confirm the data entry when the 200+ limit is exceeded?

I have considered adding kWh fuel ups, using the EPA's 33.7 kWh = 1 gallon of gasoline. You could make that entry easier by supporting kWh as a unit like liters.

You seem to be supporting the Prius Plug-In...

That's true. We added the Prius plug-in before we realized they'd be reaching around 200 MPG/fuel-up. They've sort of been grandfathered in at this point. We're still considering removing them from the public directory.

We don't want to remove the limit because we'd suddenly have a lot of cars getting over 200 MPG due to data entry errors. They happen all the time. We'd rather show nothing there so people have an incentive to fix the problem.

Requiring a second confirmation step isn't a great option. We allow fuel-ups via SMS and Fuelly Mobile where it's more difficult to have that sort of back-and-forth interaction. We'd rather keep things simple because over the vast number of people fueling up here the simple approach works better and ends up with better data.

I hear you and understand your frustration. We're just not ready to support plug-in electric vehicles right now. It's something we're thinking about. If we do it, we want to do it right—not have halfway hacks that sort of work. Again, sorry we can't support your car right now.

ok.

I made a few monthly entries to reflect my charging consumption, using 33.7 kWh as the equivalent of 1 gallon of gasoline.

I guess what needs to be added is some way to support duel fuel tanks. I have duel fuel tanks one of my farm trucks so I don't think it is unique to plug in vehicles. I edited all the fuel ups to be partials.

I had dual fuel tanks on my F-150, too. All I did was fuel both tanks at the same time and use the total amount of fuel. It doesn't matter whether thirty gallons goes into one tank or two. The place it would make a difference would be a vehicle which can use two TYPES of fuel, whether propane/gas or electricity/gas.

I usually don't fill up both tanks, just the one I emptied. I figure I want to go through the other tank and burn the older gas rather than blending it with fresh gas. I used to pay attention to having one tank with the current seasonal blend if I took the truck into the city but I don't take it off the ranch anymore.

Converting kWh to gallons seems to be working. my "mpg average" is more or less reflecting MPGe.

I think I might put together a simple smartphone app to do the conversion on the phone and SMS the fuelly update, keeping the original kWhs in the notes.

ie.

"odometer" "gallons equivalent" "gallon equivalent price" "net kWh, gross kWh, total price of charge"

I just noticed the site is supporting the Ford C-Max plug-in as well as the Prius Plug In.

https://www.fuelly.com/car/ford/c-max%20energi

So is it just going to be plug-ins that are averaging under 200 mpg?

For the time being, yes.

Sad.

I'm at about 310mpg on my Prius Plug In at 5500 miles and was hoping to use fuelly to track mileage. But apparently won't be able to.

>... 310mpg ...

Clearly a meaningless number if you can only count part of the energy input. So why do you want to record it?

I completely understand the impulse the record and share fuel consumption--it's why we built this site! I don't agree that it's completely meaningless, but I agree that MPG is only part of the equation with electric cars. It means that Fuelly isn't quite the right tool for electric car owners to use to track and share their consumption right now.

We hope to change that in the future, but until we find a way for people to report the whole picture they'll need to find another way to track.

I am not sure why you would not support adding kWh as a fuelup, along with gasoline, and reporting MPGe.

This seems to be standard forwarded by the EPA.

We don't support that because there's no unit of action associated with that. How do people measure kWh? Do they have meters on their electricity for that particular outlet so they know how many kilowatts they're specifically adding to their vehicle?

Adding electricity to a vehicle is not like adding fuel to a tank. There's no objective measure of how much you're adding.

Does the EPA provide a place to report your kWh consumption? Maybe we could use them as a model if they've found a way to do it.

the PHEV vehicles like Prius Plug In and Volt have either dashboard kWh consumption displays and/or reporting. when they use a public charging station they usually get a total kWh like a gas pump.

Generally, if they are dashboard readings they need to be adjusted for kWh at the outlet to match EPA method for MPGe. typically multiple by 1.15 to account for charging losses.

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/label...EV-label.shtml

The EPA "your MPG estimates" uses only the gasoline, without a 200mpg ceiling.

https://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.d...amp;details=on

Thanks for the extra info. Does the dashboard number change after every charge? So I guess I'm wondering does it list kWh for a specific timeframe or a specific charging action? I'm trying to know when would it be a natural time to jot down your electricity usage? After every charge? Once/month?

And also importantly does it count the energy wasted in the charger, separate from the car? My guess is no.

Regarding the natural time to record the kwh used... I've been doing that when I put gas in my Plug-in Prius. I have a trip setting that tracks kwh used, and I reset it each time I put gas in the tank (about every 3-5 months).

Regarding the energy wasted in the charger: I think it is reasonable for Fuelly to simply record the charge reported by the car at the battery, since that appears to be the most commonly available number. Yes, about 15% is wasted within the charger. But additional efficiency is lost between the power plant and your home - should we count that too? I'm being facetious with that question, but, it does help illustrate the point, no?

Regarding mpg being meaningless for a plug-in. I don't think it is, but, it depends on your perspective. My last tank was 2,013 miles, 8.41 gallons, 207.5 mpg. It is totally true that doesn't represent my total energy usage. But, it is also totally true that does accurately represent my miles driven per gallons of gasoline used. And mpg is a measure of how efficient I am being regarding my driving contributing to the world wide trade of petrochemicals. So, if Fuelly wanted to give us a way to track mpgs and continue to delay on the kwhs it would still be meaningful in a sense. The guys at Fuelly know which cars might possibly have MPG above 200 (anything that plugs in). I don't know the design of their application and database, but, perhaps they could allow plug-ins to have a higher threshold for "suspiciously high mpg."

>... And mpg is a measure of how efficient I am being regarding my driving contributing to the world wide trade of petrochemicals. ...

Nope, MPG doesn't tell you that because the electricity which is not being metered is also generated from fossil fuels / petrochemicals / etc. However if you knew the combined MPGe then you would have a better idea.

Each vehicle seems to be slightly different. Some have trip meters that that will display the total kWh, some have a meter that resets after a full charge, some have an online dashboard that displays monthly, weekly, and lifetime consumption. Quite a few people do use a kWh meter outside of the vehicle as well.

I would encourage a recording method, and calculation, that supports MPGe as defined by the EPA, which is from the plug rather than from the battery. An individual vehicle profile would help address the challenge, and allow fuelly users to select their kWh metering method, wall or battery.

I would also suggest allowing the option of "not recording kWh", set as the default. When set to record kWh, their badges could display "MPGe" rather than "MPG".

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I am currently using the monthly kWh number reported on MyVolt.com for convenience. I have entered mid-month updates, but I will delete those entries and replace them with the monthly total.

Unless my electricity comes from renewables. Which it does.

before we start a debate about ghg and emissions, let's stick to the EPA method for MPGe which is basically measure at the point you pay.

I think fuelly users are interested in cost per mile to fuel their transportation.

>...Yes, about 15% is wasted within the charger. But additional efficiency is lost between the power plant and your home - should we count that too? I'm being facetious with that question, but, it does help illustrate the point, no? ...

Except that all electricity used anywhere, anytime has to pass through power lines, but only the electricity you use to charge your car passes through your charger...

You forget that you pay for the inefficiency of the power lines... it just isn't a separate item on your bill. Conveniently forgetting that your charger uses 15% extra kWhs to heat your garage is like not counting the gas it takes to get to the gas station.. if your gas station was 60 miles away...

No matter whether you bought electric in order to be anti-fossil fuels, anti-Saudi-princes, anti-global warming, or just long-long-long-term frugal, that extra 15% is totally relevant as well as significant enough in magnitude to not be ignored.

Thanks for all of the extra info and feedback so far. This discussion has been very helpful.

Here is an example of someone that is trying to capture both the kWh as well as gasoline usage using the notes.

https://www.fuelly.com/driver/tracksyde/prius-plugin

While you are contemplating the support for PlugIn vehicles can I suggest also adding a Electric/Gas ratio display similar to the City/Hwy display. PHEV drivers tend to be interested in their EV miles ratio more than than City/Hwy.

Well someone here https://www.fuelly.com/driver/faizzaki seems to have broken the 200mpg limit. Somewhat...!!! Slightly distorts the annual model averages.... look for 2010.... https://www.fuelly.com/car/volkswagen/polo

Oooh.... and another! https://www.fuelly.com/driver/tyronnster/306 . Looks as if even more robust data checking/cleaning might be needed, ideally... tricky to do that really well... (and I've not been looking for trouble!)

Yeah, the 200 MPG limit is per individual fuel-up not overall average. Fuelly calculates overall average with total distance driven and total fuel filled, so it's not really connected to the individual fills.

The examples you point out are probably data entry errors.

The second one includes an individual fill up of 214.3 MPG. The first consists of 4 entries which don't show MPG (does this mean they were entered as partials or just that the individual MPGs were over 200? Not quite clear if invalid data like this - the 1.2 litres entries are clearly wrong - gets rejected or just causes the MPG calc not to appear).

The MPG calculation just doesn't appear if it's over 200 US MPG. You're seeing values over 200 for individual fills because you're viewing the site in UK units.

We don't reject individual fuel-ups—they all contribute to the overall average.

>seeing values over 200 for individual fills because

Aha, I see!

Thanks!