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Comment by hinathan | Hacker News Reader

This isn't rocket science. My Audi (and BMW before that) have nice clean digital displays of predicted miles remaining based on driving history, tank capacity, and measured fuel consumption. Turns out 'How far can I go?' is a better metric than 'About how much of a tank is left?'.

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Even then, the estimated remaining mileage in your gas tank is also fudged. A few seasons ago Top Gear had Clarkson drive some sort of Audi - he drove it until the indicator showed he had 0 miles left, and he kept going for a surprising while longer (he never did run out of gas). Given that evidence, I'm reasonably sure that car makers also factor in a safety margin so customers' cars don't immediately halt when the mileage-remaining indicator hits 0.

My 2010 MINI (BMW-made) has the same deal, and you could use the stats it gives you (kilometres until empty, average kilometres/litre, and actual tank size in litres) to calculate what's left in your tank, but why not just add it to the displays that already exist?

I also notice European cars (Audi, BMW, MINI, Saab, even VW etc.) tend to be more accurate and linear than American/Japanese vehicles. But that's just me.

When I was a kid my family had a Mercedes diesel and my aunt had a Cadillac. I remember noting that the Mercedes fuel gauge was labeled "Tank" and marked off in a round arc with equal distances between each of the markings. The Cadillac had a square gauge labeled "Fuel Data Centre" with a needle sweeping across markings in a straight line. The Mercedes was much more practical.

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