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Articles
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26-Mar-2015 - Updated the default price to $1.375 / L based on local Coles Express price.
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How does E10 (ethanol) petrol compare with unleaded petrol? view
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Why the Petrol Cost Calculator. view
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Litres per 100 km Calculator. L / 100 km Calculator
Overview:
The Petrol Cost Calculator enables you to quickly determine the cost of petrol for a trip. Because we don't pay for the petrol
at the time of a trip, we often don't realise the cost of petrol for a trip. By making the cost of petrol apparent you
can often save money by making better decisions on whether to use a car, to use public transport, to put off the trip until
later, to combine trips, or even to pay a little extra locally, because if you add the cost of petrol, you will often find a cheaper item which is further
away actually costs more.
Instructions:
Car Description: The car description is optional and does not affect the calculation. The description
field is provided so I can provide a default value and description for cars as I blog about the fuel efficiency of
different cars. This will enable others with the same type of car to quicky use the default values for their own
car.
Distance: Enter the trip distance. A quick way to determine an estimate of the distance is to use Google maps
and enter the start and end location of the trip. Google maps will return the distance of the trip. If you regularly
drive the same trip then use the trip meter on your car to record the distance.
Petrol Price: Enter the current petrol price. The price of petrol varies considerably and people regularly receive
discount vouchers from supermarkets. I've used the figure of $1.50 to keep things simple and as of July 2013 the price
is fluctuating around this price. I've found the pump price without discount
at the moment can vary from around $1.30 to nearly $1.60.
Litres per 100 km: A common figure used to measure fuel consumption for cars is the number of litres per 100 km. I've found
when my car was brand new my car had better fuel consumption. Even with regular servicing by the manufacturer the car's fuel
consumption increased. A good technique is to fill up the tank and record the distance to the next time you fill up. Record
the distance and the litres.
For example: I regularly fill up with around 50 litres with my car doing around 450km. To work out the litres per 100 km divide
the number kilometers by 100 and then divide the number of litres by this number. E.g. 450/100 equals 4.5. Then divide 50 by 4.5
which equals 11.11. Thus I use 11.11 litres per 100 km. This is the default value used in the calculator. The advertised figure for
my car when new was 10 litres per 100 km. Country travel uses less petrol per 100 km. A good figure to use is two thirds for country travel.
Now you can also use the L / 100 km Calculator from the menu.
Tips:
A good way to store your own petrol cost and litres per 100 km as default settings, is to do a calculation with a distance of zero.
The URL in the address bar contains your settings. Now bookmark the page or add the bookmark to your mobile home screen.
Your defaults settings are now saved with the bookmark.
Driving in the country uses roughly a third less petrol than city driving. You can use two thirds
of your litres per 100 km as an estimate. It is better however to do one or more long trips and work out
the petrol used.
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