Question

A woman drives an SUV that gets 10 mi/gal (mpg). Her husband drives a hybrid that gets 50 mpg. Every week, they travel the same number of miles. They want to improve their combined mpg. They have two options on how they can improve it.

Option 1: They can tune the SUV and increase it mileage by 1 mpg and keep the hybrid as it is.

Option 2: They can buy a new hybrid that gets 80 mpg and keep the SUV as it is.

Compute the combines mpg for each option.

Answer 1

Option 1 would be best

Answer 2

The best option would be Number 1.

Explanation:

Let's say that they each traveled 1,000 miles a week, meaning that instead of the SUV using 100 gallons of gas, it would be using 90.9, which is 9.1 gallons less.

The hybrid will only use 20 gallons of gas in that week. Meaning together, they will be 100.9 gallons a week for 1,000 miles.

In option 2, they would still be using 100 gallons of gas for the SUV a week, except, the hybrid would only be using 12.5 gallons, which is 7.5 gallons less.

The total of those together would be 112.5 gallons a week for 1,000 miles. So, it may be a small difference between the two options, yet Option 1 is the best choice on how to save gas.