Question

How many gallons of gasoline are used in the United States in one day? Assume that there are two cars for every three people, that each car is driven an average of 10,000 miles per year, and that the average car gets 20 miles per gallon.

Short answer

$2.98\times {10}^{8}gallons/day$gasoline is used in the US.

Step-by-step solution

Gallons of gasoline used in one year

Given data:

Each car is driven an average of 10000 miles per year.

The gasoline used by each car is 20 miles per gallon.

Considering the population of US is 325.7 million people.

There are two car for every three people, then the number of car in US will be,

$$\begin{gathered} n=\frac{2}{3}\times 325.7million \\ n\approx 218millioncars \end{gathered}$$

The gasoline used by each car will be,

$$\begin{gathered} m=\frac{10000milesperyear}{20milespergallon} \\ m=500gallons/year \end{gathered}$$

Calculation of usage of gasoline

The total gasoline use in one year will be,

$$\begin{gathered} x=mn \\ x=500gallons/year\times 218millions/cars\times \frac{{10}^6}{1million} \\ x=1.09\times {10}^{11}gallons/year \end{gathered}$$

The amount of gasoline required each day will be,

$$\begin{gathered} x=1.09\times {10}^{11}gallons/year\times \frac{1year}{365days} \\ x=2.98\times {10}^{8}gallons/day \end{gathered}$$

Thus, the number of gallons used in each day is$2.98\times {10}^{8}gallons/day$ .