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Articles
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Why the Car Cost Calculator. view
Overview:
The Car Cost Calculator enables people 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 people
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 often find a cheaper item further
away actually costs more.
Instructions:
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 $1.40 to keep things simple. I've found the pump price without discount
at the moment can vary from around $1.30 to $1.50.
Litres per 100km: 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 100km. This is the default value used in the calculator. The advertised figure for
my car when new was 10 litres per 100km. Country travel uses less petrol per 100km. A good figure to use is two thirds for country travel.
Tips:
A good way to store your own petrol cost and litres per 100km 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 100km as an estimate. It is better however to do one or more long trips and work out
the petrol used.
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