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Question of the Week / QotW - 11.05.22 - How much petrol should I put in my car?
« on: 17/05/2011 16:55:58 »
Gasoline weighs about 750g per liter, so carrying 80 liters of petrol has about the same effect as hauling around an additional 60kg person. If you spend most of your driving time on the motorway with properly inflated tyres, then this shouldn't affect your mileage in a noticeable way -- your car's efficiency is set mostly by drag, which isn't greatly affected in that case by how much weight is in the car. If you spend most of your driving time in town, you will spend some extra petrol accelerating the petrol in the tank -- but if you have a very small, light car that (including you) has a mass of ~600kg and a 40 liter petrol tank, you are looking at (at most) a 5% effect on mileage when your tank is full compared to when it is empty.