Webware

The other day I picked up a rental car while visiting Los Angeles. In just a few days it ended up costing me well over the price of gas it would have taken to drive my own car there and back. A smart tool called CostToDrive would have helped me figure this out before I made the trip. It calculates how much a trip is going to cost you based on how far you're traveling, combined with the fuel efficiency of your car and average price of gas. Assuming you have to fill up when your tank is about empty, it tells you precisely where to go to get the cheapest gallon too.

The tool has records for several types of vehicles, going back to 1999. If you've got an older vehicle or one that's not on the list, you can manually plug in both how big your tank is and the general highway mileage. From there it can do the math and give you the magic number.

There are a few things to note with this system. The first is that this is currently for the U.S. only, and your mileage (literally) may vary. The tool does not take into account any driving you'd do once at your destination, and city and highway mileage can be drastically different depending on the vehicle. Also, estimations are currently only one-way, which means you'll need to double the price if you plan on coming back.

See also AAA's Trip Gas Price finder, which is a little less exact with the pricing (but does round trips) and GasAddict.com which supports multiple stops but is the hardest of the bunch to use.

[via TechnoSpot via DownloadSquad]

How much is your trip going to cost? Let CostToDrive.com do the math for you.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

I saw Twitter buzz building this morning over Fuelly, a site that records your gasoline purchases and gives you potentially useful info in return: your car's mileage and cost data like dollars you're spending per mile and your fuel economy over time. You can record your info on an iPhone, even. The site's special sauce is the social angle; you can follow people and compare your mileage to theirs. Coming soon to the service: A way to update your gas purchases over Twitter.

Believe it or not, there are already other Twitter-enabled gas purchase trackers out there. MyMileMarker and FuelFrog both let you Tweet your receipts, so when you visit your account later from a big computer you can analyze your driving and expenses.

Those sites don't have the social angle that Fuelly does, though. With Fuelly, you can compare and compete with other users for mileage bragging rights. Does that matter? It could help you research real-world mileage on a car model you're thinking of buying. And it might be something you want if you're a competitive hypermiler. I can't imagine the novelty of Fuelly's social network becoming something you'd actually want to stick with, but if you use the site for tracking your personal mileage, it's a gimme.

Track your economy with Fuelly. If you have friends with the same car model, you can see how you compare.

Fuelly also serves to remind us that there are a lot of resources to help us track our gas spending and save money. In addition to the sites mentioned so far, there's also FuelEconomy.gov's Your MPG, which does mileage tracking using a retro, hideous K-Car-era interface.

The iPhone app Triplog will do the useful mileage calculations as well as track your car use for tax purposes. iPhone users might also want to check out lower-cost apps like AccuFuel, FuelGage, GasHog, and CarStat.

To get the best prices on gas, there are map sites like GasBuddy. Sadly, none of the mileage tracking sites yet integrate with a gas price database like this. And do keep in mind that driving a few miles to save 10 cents on a gallon of gas might end up costing you more than you save, not including the cost of your time or extra wear on your car.

If you really want to save money on gas, drive mellow and inflate your tires to their maximum recommend pressure. Thanks to the Obama/McCain energy spat it's become cliche, but I just corrected the slightly saggy tire pressures I was driving on and my mileage went up 15 percent. No iPhone or Twitter widget is going to save me money like my gas station's air hose just did.

This post was updated at 9 a.m. PDT with clarifying details on GasBuddy.com's data source and the correct spelling on Milt Krantz' name.

Perhaps you heard Wednesday's news about the price of crude oil once again reaching all-time highs, and, like me, you're wondering how that's going to affect gas prices at the pump as you fill up for your Memorial Day weekend trip.

Rest assured, you've got the likes of Milt Krantz on your side.

Krantz, 71, a retired social worker from San Jose, Calif., is also a designated gas price spotter for GasBuddy.com, one of a handful of increasingly busy sites for finding cheap gas in your vicinity.

"It's a little something I can do about the price of gas," said Krantz, adding that the payoff for his efforts is the feeling that consumers are working together to make a difference. "We're in it together."

And what a difference such information can make: In San Francisco on Tuesday, for example, the price of a gallon of regular gasoline ranged from $3.86 to $4.53, depending upon location, according to Gas.Buddy.com's regional site SanFranGasPrices.com. That's a 67-cent difference, or $10.05, when filling a 15-gallon tank.

That potential savings, combined with the scary sound of $4-a-gallon gas, has been driving up traffic to such sites.

"For about the last 60 days, we've seen a nice steady ramp up," said Brad Proctor, founder of GasPriceWatch.com, which offers price data from about 130,000 gas stations.

The results of a search on MapQuest Gas Prices using CNET's San Francisco ZIP code.

(Credit: MapQuest)

GasBuddy.com, which serves as an umbrella site for 180 regionalized sites covering some 170,000 gas stations in the U.S. and Canada, has seen more of a steady climb in traffic, said co-founder Jason Toews. When we last talked to Toews in 2005--as gas prices were hitting a then-shocking $3 per gallon--GasBuddy was averaging about 700,000 to 800,000 unique visitors a day. Now it gets about 2 million visitors a day, he said.

Of course, gas price sites vary greatly in terms of format, functionality, and info-gathering methodology. GasBuddy.com and GasPriceWatch.com, both 8-year-old sites, rely on their networks of registered members/spotters, but also factor in information from retailers and other sources. GasBuddy has some 1.4 million member/spotters and GasPriceWatch has about 166,000. And both have arrangements to share their data with other media outlets

Spotters are community members who are usually offered incentive points or a chance to win a "thank you" prize such as a discount on gas. But for Krantz, who uploads prices at least once a week, the motivation is more the idea of exposing the stations that are gouging consumers and rewarding the ones that are not.

"People still want to think they have a little power with their dollar," added Proctor.

AAA's Gas Price Finder, unlike the other two sites, uses data derived primarily from credit card transactions. And MapQuest Gas Prices and MSN Gas Prices rely on data supplied by the Oil Price Information Service, a pricing database that collects information from 125,000 North American retail outlets.

It should be noted that new technologies have changed the way consumers are accessing information from the gas price sites. Some, like me, are still looking at the sites on their PCs. But other gadgeteers are getting such information through in-car GPS systems, text messaging, and smartphone applications.

As far as tools go, GasBuddy.com has one of the coolest in what it calls its Gas Temperature Map, an interactive display of gas prices around the country, with areas color-coded according to their average price for regular unleaded gasoline. Through the map, and with a little guidance from Toews, I learned Tuesday the lowest gas price in the country was found in Rapid City, S.D., at $3.38 per gallon, and the highest was in Beaver Island, Mich., at $5.19 per gallon.

"In 2000, I never would have thought gas prices would be this high. It doesn't surprise me anymore," Toews said. "We've gotten desensitized to the high prices." Nonetheless, he does expect activity on his site to be brisk before the three-day weekend.

Toews offered a closing hint for bargain shoppers. Look for Arco service stations, which don't accept credit cards and therefore can offer cheaper prices.

GasBuddy.com's Gas Temperature Map is an interactive display of gas prices around the country, with areas color-coded according to their average price for regular unleaded gasoline.

(Credit: GasBuddy.com)

Cars and maps are kind of a match made in heaven. People get lost, and roads are confusing. Luckily, pumping gas is not, and despite some states like Oregon requiring people to pump your gas for you, most other places are a self-serve affair. The Associated Press is reporting that a new line of gas pumps from Gilbarco Veeder-Root, due to ship next month, will be equipped with a touch-screen panel that includes a slightly stripped-down version of Google Maps to let you browse local attractions like hotels, amusement parks, and restaurants that have been handpicked by the gas station's owner. When you've found what you're looking for, you can then print out the directions right from the pump. Stations that buy and install them simply need to hook up the pump to the Internet to get the things going.

There are already several things missing from this service from the get-go. The first is ads, which isn't a bad thing for users, but an interesting move from a company that's created an empire off of advertising. Instead, Google is letting the station owners work with local retailers to set up coupons that drivers can print out along with the directions.

Find where you want to go on these new Webby gas pumps with integrated Google Maps.

(Credit: Gilbarco Inc.)

The second missing piece is bona fide point-to-point directions, meaning you can't just type in a street address where you want to go. You're simply not getting the same directory of what you'd find searching Google Maps through your computer or mobile device. While it's cool the gas station owners can pick their own favorite spots, what if where you're trying to go isn't on there? It's clearly an awesome first step, but hardly a full-featured solution--at least until they update the software.

Despite the cool factor, you're unlikely to see these new pumps in your neck of the woods for some time. The initial rollout is fairly small at only 3,500 pumps, and there are no plans to produce more unless there's demand for it.

[via AP]

Short of keeping a pen, paper, and notebook in your glove compartment, there's not really an easy way to track your driving habits between gas fill-ups. Enter MyMileMarker, a simple and useful solution for figuring out how much driving is costing you in gas, and how many miles you're likely to put on your vehicle in the course of a year. Best of all, you can upload your data to the service for free on the Web, or using your mobile phone.

Setting up your vehicle with MyMileMarker is about as simple as it gets--just put in the make and model of your car, or give it a nickname (useful if you're the type of person who names their car). Then, just give it a base odometer listing and your latest fill-up, and you're good to go. From there, you need simply add your odometer reading every time you add gas to your car, be it a fill-up or just a few gallons.

Figure out how much your car is going to cost you over the next year by recording your driving and gas habits.

(Credit: CNET NEtworks)

Here's where the mobile aspect comes in. Instead of using their own mobile service (like a call center or an automated message process), MyMileMarker uses Twitter as their medium for users to send in mileage reports from their phones. Users just need a Twitter account, and to befriend "Mymm." Sending a private message to that user with your mileage will automatically update your records and place the timestamp in for you.

Once you've provided MyMileMarker with three reports, it will begin to crunch your usage statistics. The more you use the service, the better the predictions get. If you miss a few fill ups, the service will do its best to calculate your laziness, and take it into account for the annual forecast.

There are a few missing features I'd like to see added. One is an option to call in your stats using an 800-number, since you're often times busy enough while pumping gas to sit and type. Another is the option to edit past entries. You can only edit or delete your most recent entry, which means if you mistype the price of gas, or your odometer reading, you have to delete, and then re-enter the listing (which you can only do from the Web).

Of course there are several other ways to track your gas usage--like getting a credit card just for gas purchases, and doing monthly odometer tracking on a spreadsheet-- but if you'd like the added benefit of predictions, MyMileMarker shows how scarily expensive owning a vehicle can be. For another take on the service, check out SolutionWatch's hands-on with it last month.