Mi/L to MPG (US)
1 mile per liter equals 3.785411784 miles per gallon (US) exactly.
How to convert miles per liter to miles per gallon (US)
To convert miles per liter to miles per gallon (US), multiply the number of miles per liter by 3.785411784. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply miles per gallon (US) by 0.2641720524 (rounded).
miles per gallon (US) = miles per liter × 3.785411784
Example: 10 miles per liter = 37.85411784 miles per gallon (US).
Miles per gallon rises as a car gets more efficient, while liters per 100 km falls. The conversion between them is a reciprocal (for US mpg: L/100 km = 235.215 ÷ mpg).
About these units
Mile Per Liter (mi/L)
Miles traveled on one liter of fuel.
Where cars are sold with distances in miles and fuel in liters, the natural measure of efficiency is miles per liter. It is a hybrid of the two systems, and the sources consulted do not show it as a standard labelling unit. Metric countries normally quote liters per 100 kilometers or kilometers per liter, while the United States uses miles per US gallon and the United Kingdom still quotes miles per imperial gallon.
Converting is straightforward because a mile is defined as exactly 1.609344 kilometers, so one mile per liter equals 1.609344 kilometers per liter. In the other direction, one kilometer per liter is about 0.621 miles per liter. Against gallon-based figures the multiplier is the gallon size: an imperial gallon is 4.54609 liters, so one mile per liter is about 4.546 miles per imperial gallon, and the US gallon of about 3.785 liters gives about 3.785 miles per US gallon. A car that returns 10 miles per liter would therefore cover roughly 45 miles on an imperial gallon, and in the usual metric form it would burn 100 divided by 16.09, or just over 6.2 liters per 100 kilometers.
1 mile per liter = 1.609344 kilometers per liter (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Fuel economy in automobiles; NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8 conversion factors
Mile Per Gallon (US) (mpg (US))
Miles traveled on one US gallon of fuel. The standard fuel-economy unit in the United States; higher is better.
American fuel economy became a matter of policy in the 1970s. After the 1973 Arab oil embargo, Congress enacted the Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules in 1975, setting a sales-weighted average for each manufacturer's cars and light trucks. Fleet economy had been sliding until 1973, reaching a low of about 13.4 mpg, then rose as fuel costs rose: about 17 mpg in 1978, 22 in 1982, and about 25.4 mpg for the average new vehicle in the 2020 model year. Earlier still, the Mobil Economy Run (1936 to 1968) tested real-world mileage on a coast-to-coast route.
The US gallon is legally 231 cubic inches, or 3.785411784 litres. It descends from the English wine gallon, redefined as 231 cubic inches in 1706 under Queen Anne and adopted as the US standard in 1836. It is about 17 percent smaller than the imperial gallon, so US mpg figures look lower than British ones for the same car. Mpg has a quirk known as the MPG illusion: going from 10 to 20 mpg halves fuel use, but going from 50 to 60 mpg saves far less, even though both are 10 mpg gains. For that reason the EPA label also shows gallons per 100 miles.
1 mile per gallon (US) = 0.4251437074 kilometers per liter (approximately).
Sources: Wikipedia: Fuel economy in automobiles; Wikipedia: Imperial gallon; fueleconomy.gov: Learn more about the gasoline label
Related conversions
- MPG (US) to mi/L (reverse)
- Mi/L to km/L
- Mi/L to MPG (UK)
- Mi/L to L/100 km
- Km/L to MPG (US)
- MPG (UK) to MPG (US)
- L/100 km to MPG (US)
- Gal/100 mi (US) to MPG (US)
- Gal/100 mi (UK) to MPG (US)
- L/mil to MPG (US)
See all fuel economy units.