Alternative Fuels Data Center: Fuel Economy and Consumption of Light-Duty Vehicles

Source:

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Transportation Energy Data Book #39, Table 4.1 for vehicle miles traveled and Table 3.13 for average vehicle life (based on the year when only 50% of cars have survived)
Bureau of Transportation Statistics for fuel efficiency (in mpg) of light-duty vehicles with short-wheelbase vehicle data used as a proxy for cars and long-wheelbase vehicle data used as a proxy for trucks
FuelEconomy.gov for fuel efficiency (in mpg) for specific vehicles

The relationship between fuel economy and fuel use is not linear. The percentage of fuel economy improvement is more important than the numerical miles per gallon (mpg) improvement. For example, increasing fuel economy from 10 mpg to 12 mpg represents a 20% improvement in fuel economy while increasing the same 2 mpg from 20 mpg to 22 mpg is only a 10% improvement.

To view more details, notes, and acronyms, please download the Excel spreadsheet.

	8	10	14	15	17	20	25	30	35	40	45	50	55	60	65	70	75	80	85	90	95	100	105	110	115	120
Lifetime Gallons	8,18833	10,15067	14,10762	15,10044	17,8863	20,7533	25,6027	30,5022	35,4305	40,3767	45,3348	50,3013	55,2739	60,2511	65,2318	70,2152	75,2009	80,1883	85,1773	90,1674	95,1586	100,1507	105,1435	110,1370	115,1310	120,1256
Rolls-Royce Wraith	8,	10,	14,10762	15,	17,	20,	25,	30,	35,	40,	45,	50,	55,	60,	65,	70,	75,	80,	85,	90,	95,	100,	105,	110,	115,	120,
Avg. Light Truck	8,	10,	14,	15,	17,8561	20,	25,	30,	35,	40,	45,	50,	55,	60,	65,	70,	75,	80,	85,	90,	95,	100,	105,	110,	115,	120,
Avg. Car	8,	10,	14,	15,	17,	20,	25,6252	30,	35,	40,	45,	50,	55,	60,	65,	70,	75,	80,	85,	90,	95,	100,	105,	110,	115,	120,
Toyota Prius	8,	10,	14,	15,	17,	20,	25,	30,	35,	40,	45,	50,2897	55,	60,	65,	70,	75,	80,	85,	90,	95,	100,	105,	110,	115,	120,