Fuel efficiency for new cars jumps in the United States in July 2009

July has seen a fairly large uptick in the average miles per gallon for new cars in the United States, from 21.4 to 22.1, something that just didn't happen over the last decade.

So, what does that mean in concrete terms? Well, the total number of cars and light trucks sold in July was 997,824.

The average distance driven by a car per year is usually given as 15,000 miles, which means 679 gallons per car instead of 700 per year, multiplied by the number of cars sold = 21 million gallons of gasoline saved over a year. At present a single gallon is $2.65 in the United States, which means that the higher efficiency will save Americans $55.65 million over the year.

Note of course that there is also the added benefit of not using old and less efficient cars that have been thrown out as a result of buying new cars - the number given above is only the efficiency for new cars, thus the difference between new cars sold in July vs. that of new cars sold in previous months.