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Comment by dmeola | Hacker News Reader

My car tells me how many miles I have left by basing its estimation on my consumption over the past 30 miles. It has been pretty accurate.

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I think you can liken the situation with macOS to switching from a gas car to a Hybrid. Gas cars have relatively predictable MPG. Hybrids don't. Your Hybrid can go from 25MPG up to 100+MPG depending on the way you drive, and it can bounce back and forth between the two constantly during a trip. Now, I have to admit, I don't own a car at all and so I don't know if hybrid cars actually try to estimate mileage remaining, but if they do, then surely their estimate will change wildly as you change how you drive (e.g. smooth highway driving to traffic jam to city driving to aggressive driving to defensive driving, etc).

I own a Prius. Fuel efficiency doesn't seem to be any more variable than the conventional cars I've driven. The distance remaining estimate seems reasonably accurate in that it goes down ~50 miles after I've driven 50 miles.

Whenever I drive a Prius with ZipCar, the MPG numbers change wildly while I drive, and even the average MPG can change by 5–10 miles over the course of a decent drive. I assume the distance remaining estimate is based on that average MPG number, but since I have seen it change by significant amounts, that means the distance remaining estimate certainly is reasonably inaccurate.

If you always drive your car in the same manner then sure, you'll probably have a reasonable estimate. But similarly if all you do with your computer is browse the web, you'll also have a predictable battery remaining estimate. But while many people do drive fairly consistently, your usage of your computer probably has a lot more variety in terms of energy impact.

That's why you average it over some time, not just take the momentary usage.

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