Cars should have a $per mile gauge.

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Throckmorton1975@reddit

You can in my Prius, but you have to enter the price manually, so I've never used the function.

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striykker@reddit

or maybe just do the math. or learn to do the math. Whichever works.

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Sweet_Speech_9054@reddit (OP)

I can do math just fine when I’m sober. I’m an engineer. I just can’t do it drunk.

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Trick_Minute2259@reddit

Dollars per minute seems more useful/intuitive to me.

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What would really be useful would be if maintenance was factored in as well. Dollars per minute to run the vehicle. If you’re braking hard for example it’ll increase to reflect more brake part usage per mile. Of course it would never be fully accurate, just like the MPG display on cars, but it would be useful regardless.

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Darkknight145@reddit

Because petrol prices vary wildly, would you really want to be sitting there entering fuel prices every time you fill up. It's easier to just work in out on a calculator.

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Sweet_Speech_9054@reddit (OP)

Working it out on a calculator would also require entering it in every time you fill up plus more information.

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Far-Fill-4717@reddit

I agree, except you can already do this basically instantly. Just take the average price and / by mpg.

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Sweet_Speech_9054@reddit (OP)

But I can’t do that much math when I’m drunk.

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CameronsTheName@reddit

Pro tip. The seatbelt buckle can be used to crack open your beer lid.

60% of the time it works every time.

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Far-Fill-4717@reddit

You shouldn't be in your car or driving when drunk....

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R_Soul_@reddit

Sarcasm is lost on this one.

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iAdjunct@reddit

Well, you could have a DD driving you in your car…

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ozaudi@reddit

It's probable that you can't read a screen or dial either.

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storm-000@reddit

Fucking legendary reply

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Prestigious_Tie_8734@reddit

I disagree only because the cost per mile takes into account the vehicles reliable and average cost BUT that can only be calculated based on consensus after years of sales. Would be great if manufacturers added that but chances are they’d all lie.

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LoudSheepherder5391@reddit

You know you can calculate your mpg, right?

Take miles since last fill up/current fill up.

Most modern cars even spit out your current, active mpg. If it had some way to "know" what you paid for gas, this would be a trivial calculation

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archlich@reddit

It also doesn’t factor in maintenance, insurance, depreciation though. Just fuel cost.

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afraidofflying@reddit

You could calculate travel speed from your tac, but it's a lot easier to have a machine do the math.

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Troglodytes_Cousin@reddit

Well the cost of driving is a lot more than the cost of the gasoline. It would give people the wrong impression. But should be easily doable in software and cost almost nothing.

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BeastyBaiter@reddit

Seems technically feasible with no catastrophic downsides, which is unusual for this subreddit. Don't think it would serve any practical purpose but it could be done.

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iAdjunct@reddit

The absolute hardest part would be getting the $/gallon, but first deciding which path to take: use the $/gal of last fill up, or the $/gal of replacement (i.e. the current gas price)…

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export_tank_harmful@reddit

You could have it display both.
Have a "Current $/gal" and an "Expected $/gal".

A lot of vehicles nowadays record MPG, so you could just tap into the OBDII port to get that number.
Then you'd have an input field (or poll some kind of API for the gas station you're currently at) to get the dollar value.
You'd still have to select which grade of fuel you got (or use some kind of computer vision to figure out which one you selected).

It could update the "Expected $/gal" based on the nearest gas stations to you.
If the value was below a certain threshold and your tank was below a certain threshold, it could notify you and automatically send the data to your mapping app of choice.

It'd be a neat little project.
I have no interest in making it (nor do I think it would sell), but it'd still be a neat project. haha.

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iAdjunct@reddit

It’s certainly easy to code if it’s an input field, but almost nobody will actually do it. My point is that if you want it to be deployed and useful to the masses, the car would have to do that part automatically, and that’s the hardest part.

This would be a really good thing for GasBuddy to pitch though.

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WorldTallestEngineer@reddit

That's easy, just a simple user input, or pull average fuel prices off the internet

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gravelpi@reddit

My car seems to read speed limit signs, so we're not far off from being able to read gas prices.

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Trick_Minute2259@reddit

Current local average price. It shouldnt be that hard, the data already exists on gas buddy and the car's ecu.

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LachoooDaOriginl@reddit

Id say price since last fill up

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WorldTallestEngineer@reddit

It'd be very practical for Uber driver, or anyone who drive professionally on slim profit margin.

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ozaudi@reddit

Doubtful as professional and full-time drivers would know when they need to fill and what the likely cost of fuel will be at that time and place. Plus they really don't have a choice if they wish to work.

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Jazzlike_Video2@reddit

I guess this is where L/100km or gallons/100miles kinda wins. If you know what you filled up for.

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Pinelli72@reddit

If only they taught useful stuff like this in school.

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bigtittielover69@reddit

$.02/mile. That’s mine for my EV.

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goeslikehell@reddit

I went through a hypermiling phase when gas prices spiked in 2008 and had a Scangauge in my car that showed cost per trip alongside the mpg data. You had to input your fuel price at each fill up but it was a useful tool. Plugs into the OBD port and gives a simple readout on a little display.

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feel-the-avocado@reddit

My toyota has that. Every time it notices you filled up the tank, it asks you to input the amount you paid in dollars per litre on the dash board.

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giantpicklepi@reddit

Which model?

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feel-the-avocado@reddit

2020 hilux I think my mother's 2020 yaris does it too.

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Alone-Breakfast3176@reddit

Yup, my 2017 Prius had this

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iamabigtree@reddit

Added to that a trip counter which tells you how much it cost after every trip. Based on the cost from the last fill up.

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Unfair_Scar_2110@reddit

According to the IRS it costs about $0.72 cents to drive a car a mile. That's for gas, insurance, oil changes, repairs, etc.

If you pay $4 per gallon and get 20 miles per gallon:

$4/gal *(1gallon/20miles)= 20 cents per mile.

So less than a third of the cost of driving your car comes from the fuel.

If gas went up to $5/gallon you'd now be paying 25 cents per mile for gas.

Its probably just easiest to know what the average fuel cost is near you, what the average fuel economy is for your car, and then figure the answer is probably between 15 and 30 cents a mile.

Obviously this is dependent on where you live, what you drive, how you drive, etc.

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Responsible-Chest-26@reddit

I've got it in my mind some systems can do this already. Either in GPS or a car's maintenance software. I could just be making this up but I swear I've seen it before

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AsarsonDuck@reddit

Could get a background program in the GPS to identify gas stations in the area, scrap their webpage with the location and auto show the price of both the cost and on selecting a fill up the cheapest option I’m sure

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Sweet_Speech_9054@reddit (OP)

A few commenters have confirmed it exists in several vehicles.

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PastelCherryTwirl@reddit

As you floor it you’ll be there watching your money evaporate in real time.

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JSTootell@reddit

I do hate at idle with my 7.3 liter Powerstroke 😂

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Alone-Breakfast3176@reddit

My 2017 Prius had this feature. Every time you filled up it asked you for the gas price and it had a digital log. Gave numbers like cost per day, cost per mile, cost per trip etc.

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etsuprof@reddit

I mean in my 2012 Prius you could put in the fuel price and it told you what each drive cost when you shut the car down at the end of the drive.

It wasn’t live, but it was timely.

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ozaudi@reddit

Because I might be travelling yourself where I don't buy fuel locally and I certainly don't want to manually input the bowser price I paid for my fuel

My vehicle actually has the function you want and I never use it. I have a number of travelling apps that also allow cost per unit distance covered and I don't use that either.

I can watch my odometer and fuel gauge to work out when I'm likely to need a refill because I drive by for equal often enough I know it well enough to do this simple mental calculation.

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Distinct_Rope@reddit

Oh god no, I don't want to know how much im burning away on my commutes to get more of the thing I'm burning.

Ignorance is bliss, I'll pay for my ignorance at the gas station. Not like I have a choice in the matter anyways.

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britishmetric144@reddit

This post demonstrates the stupidity of the MPG format; if you use gallons per 100 miles, all you need to do is multiply by the price of fuel per gallon to get the cost per 100 miles.

It's already parallel to how areas like Canada and Europe use litres per 100 kilometres. You can just multiply by the price of fuel per litre to get the cost per 100 kilometres.

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FernShades@reddit

The ultimate reality check. It’s a lot harder to justify a snack run when the dash tells you the drive cost more than the chips

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Sorry-Climate-7982@reddit

You would want to hook it to a bluetooth or similar wireless connection to the gas pump as you fill up, so it could actually be accurate. Whether there could be an ultra low voltage communications channel between the filler nozzle and your gas tank not sure.

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