Just a question out of curiosity concerning the US model. On the analog instant FE gauge, what numbers are used for the scale. In Canada FE is measured in Liters/100km, so lower numbers are better. Our scale starts at 0 for best and goes to 30 for worst. For MPG it must be a bit tougher as you kind of have to pick a number out of the blue to be representative of "best FE" measurement.

 

In the US it's measured as miles per gallon. The top of the gauge is zero and the bottom is 60 mpg, right before the blue EV range. I'm not sure what you mean by the "best FE" measurement. The higher the better.

 

Any suggestions as to why the higher numbers are at the bottom and the lower ones are at the top?

 

On the analog instant FE gauge, what numbers are used for the scale
The US model is in MPGand measured in increments of 10 up to 60. For an American this is indeed easy to understand. We were raised on this concept and even to me as an engineer I think it's more meaningful than measuring consumption / distance.

Any suggestions as to why the higher numbers are at the bottom and the lower ones are at the top?

Possibly so as not to confuse someone thinking it is the speedometer? You'll get so used to looking at the two in a TCH that if they both went the same way I think your brain would have to analyze the data more whereas it's more of a visual setup that you don't have to think about. Also when you go to EV mode you see the needle drop to the bottom, meaning NO GAS, if it went to the top then it could mean HIGHEST EFFECIENCY. This is probably a lot like the discussion on Metric vrs English. I'm sure a lot of thought went into this design and for me it works.

 

Yea, it took me a long while to get used to the metric fuel consumption figures. I used to calculate MPGs myself up until just a couple of years ago (Canada has been metric for decades now).

They still give MPG ratings on cars though. In Canada the TCH is rated at 50 mpg city and highway. Woohoo..

Of course, thats Imperial Gallon, not US gallon. Does sound better though
Works out to about 41.6mpg US.

 

Dashboard displays and gauges are designed for glance use. Ever look at an analog watch and then need to look again when somebody asks what time it is? That's becuase your first glance told you where you were in the day but then needed to be converted into an actual time to tell when questioned. Same thing with car gauges. In fact, most car gauges are set to normalize in the center of the arc, so you don't need to read the guage, just see the realitive position of the needle. I suspect the FE gauge is the same way, and calibrated simiarly to tachamoters: the higher up, the more work the engine is doing. Normal driving will put the guage pointing virtually level left. Very nice.

 

The Canadian scale is stupid - the useful range of 5 to 10 L/100 is so small is basically useless. On US cars you will use most of the scale to determine how well you're driving. It's worth buying the car in the US just for this fact (and that you will save about 10%). See my earlier post.

 

Thanks for the reply 'gasguy,

Upward calibrated analog tachs are often located in the same postion without much confusion, so I doubt that was the reason.

Your reply made me look at the gage differently. The display's displaying gasoline consumption -- the higher the needle, the MORE FUEL is being used.

High needle = low mpg
Low needle = high mpg

They got it right.

 

I guess...

In thinking about this some more, I had assumed the needle sweep was indentical in both country versions and that the face plate of gauge was the only difference. Both versions of the scale are the same size and have 4 marked increments. However, after comparing the two, they can't be. if you take the Canadian scale (0,10,20,30 L/100km) and convert it to US, the scale would actually read as:

• 1st mark: no fuel consumption/infinite mpg (where 60mpg is)
• 2nd mark: 23.5 mpg (where 40mpg is)
• 3rd mark: 11.7 mpg (where 20mpg is)
• 4th mark: 7.8 mpg (where 0mpg is)

So what does this mean? That I spend too much time pondering my TCH even to the point of figuring this stuff out. I think I'll go check it again, there might be a bit of dust on it...