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Site estimates gas costs for trips

Posted by Paul Makishima, Globe Assistant Sunday Editor October 7, 2008 10:47 AM


My pal Sam loves to talk about how much money he's saved by buying a Honda Civic hybrid. So I plan to turn my boy onto Cost2Drive, a new webapp that estimates the fuel cost of any given trip. This is the way it works:
logo.JPG
Say, you're planning a drive to P-town this weekend and you live in JP. You go to the site; enter your starting point and destination, the year of your car, along with make and model.
Cost2Drive uses your car's MPG, gleaned from the EPA. They then grab the average price of gas in your area from Oil Price Information Service, and bang it all up against and the distance, which comes via Google map technology, to "galculate" your cost.
After plugging my data into Cost2Drive I learn that getting to P-town in my 1999 Subaru Forester (stop laughing; it's a cool ride) will set me back $15.04; Sam, on the other hand, will only have to pony up $8.60.
Obviously, this calculation isn't high-level math so you could easily do it yourself. But if your car's EPA isn't tattooed to your forearm and if you aren't fully conversant in the current average price of a gallon of petrol in your hood and you want to know whether it makes the most financial sense to drive, take the train or just Fung Wah (or just be green and stay home), this app is worth a try. Besides it's fun.
Thanks to Riverwired for pointing us to this one.

3 comments so far...
  1. Did anyone notice that this uses $2.80 / gallon as the cost for gas? Where are they filling up?!?!

    Posted by Bryan Woods October 7, 08 05:24 PM
  1. I noticed that - the tool is clunky, inaccurate, and there's typos all over the place ... Not something I'd trust!

    Posted by Nana October 7, 08 06:44 PM
  1. Site doesn't take into engine configuration into consideration...
    It has one option for 2006 Subaru Outback Wagon - says I get 25mpg (highway, I guess?) and "regular" fuel.

    There are three distinct engines for that car:
    3.0L 6-cyl - 24mpg highway, Premium fuel
    2.5L 4-cyl turbocharged - 23mpg highway, Premium fuel
    2.5L 4-cyl - 26mpg highway, Regular fuel

    Posted by superdood October 7, 08 06:51 PM
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