L/100km to MPG conversion table

Litres per 100 kilometres from 2 to 30 in half-litre steps, converted to miles per US gallon, miles per imperial gallon and kilometres per litre. The US column divides 235.214583 by the L/100km figure and the UK column divides 282.480936; km/L is 100 divided by the figure. All three are computed at build time from the same code the L/100km to MPG converter runs.

The range covers everything on the road. Two litres per 100 km is a plug-in hybrid on a charged battery; four to five is a small hybrid; six to eight is an ordinary petrol car; ten to fourteen is a large SUV or a pickup; above twenty is a supercar, a motorhome or a car towing. For a figure between the rows, or beyond thirty, use the converter.

The mpg columns fall fastest at the top. Going from 2 to 2.5 L/100km drops the US figure by 23.5 mpg; going from 20 to 20.5 drops it by 0.3. That is the reciprocal relationship between the two units, and it is why L/100km is the fairer scale for comparing cars: each half-litre step is the same amount of fuel wherever it sits in the table, while the mpg steps beside it are not. The MPG or L/100km guide goes into what that means for a purchase.

The UK column is always 20.1% above the US one on the same row, because the imperial gallon holds 20.095% more fuel. A British reader looking up a European figure of 5.5 L/100km should read 51.36 mpg, not 42.77. The gallon guide explains why the two exist.