Karla drove her vehicle 12,000 miles last year. How many gallons of gasoline would she have saved last year had she driven a fuel-efficient hybrid car averaging 48 miles per gallon rather than an SUV averaging 15 miles per gallon?
To compare how much gasoline Karla used with the SUV and how much she would have used with the hybrid car, I need to find out how many gallons of gasoline each vehicle consumed for 12,000 miles. To do that, I can use the formula: gallons = miles / miles per gallon. For the SUV, I plug in the given values: gallons = 12,000 / 15 = 800. For the hybrid car, I do the same: gallons = 12,000 / 48 = 250. Now, to find out how many gallons of gasoline she would have saved, I subtract the smaller amount from the larger amount: 800 - 250 = 550. So, Karla would have saved 550 gallons of gasoline last year if she had driven a hybrid car instead of an SUV. 