MPG (US) to Km/L
1 mile per gallon (US) equals 0.4251437074 kilometers per liter (rounded).
How to convert miles per gallon (US) to kilometers per liter
To convert miles per gallon (US) to kilometers per liter, multiply the number of miles per gallon (US) by 0.4251437074. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply kilometers per liter by 2.352145833 (rounded).
kilometers per liter = miles per gallon (US) × 0.4251437074
Example: 10 miles per gallon (US) = 4.251437074 kilometers per liter.
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 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
Kilometer Per Liter (km/L)
Distance traveled on one liter of fuel. The standard way to quote fuel economy in India, Japan, Brazil and much of Asia.
Kilometres per litre is the most literal way to ask how far a car goes on a given amount of fuel. It is a direct measure of fuel economy, so higher is better, and it sits between the two systems that dominate the world: miles per gallon and litres per 100 km. The sources I found do not credit any specific inventor or date for it; it is simply the metric counterpart to miles per gallon, formed by dividing distance by volume in the units a country already used for roads and fuel.
Wikipedia lists India, Japan and South Korea among the places that quote economy in km/L. A conversion shows how it relates to US figures: 1 km/L is about 2.35 mpg (US), so 10 km/L is roughly 23.5 mpg (US), in the same range as the average new US vehicle of the 2020 model year, which was about 25.4 mpg. The Levant has its own variant, kilometres per 20 litres, based on the size of a common fuel container called a tanaka.
The kilometer per liter is the reference unit for fuel economy on this site.
Sources: Wikipedia: Fuel economy in automobiles; Wikipedia: Imperial gallon
Related conversions
- Km/L to MPG (US) (reverse)
- MPG (US) to MPG (UK)
- MPG (US) to L/100 km
- MPG (US) to mi/L
- MPG (US) to gal/100 mi (US)
- MPG (US) to gal/100 mi (UK)
- MPG (US) to L/mil
- MPG (UK) to km/L
- L/100 km to km/L
- Mi/L to km/L
- Gal/100 mi (US) to km/L
- Gal/100 mi (UK) to km/L
- L/mil to km/L
See all fuel economy units.