Tracking my Ram's Mpg usage and costs

I thought this would be kind of interesting, since I'm a developer/programmer (analyst) by trade my nerdy side of me thinks like this. I created a very simple spreadsheet that tracks my mpg usage and cost per fill up. I only have 18 fill ups since I bought the truck at the beginning of June. Except where noted, I drive this truck the same exact commute 4 days a week (about 70 miles round trip per day). On the weekends, the truck normally doesn’t move. My normal commute is about 65% hwy and 35% city driving. Except when I have road rage, I’m pretty light on the pedal. If it’s not obvious, this is all hand calculated data. I‘m going to keep recording this data for as long as I have the Ram. I’m curious to see how my mpg dives in the winter time like all of my other vehicles have.

that is the best tracking of MPG I have seen so far.

I wish we could get no ethanol gas in philly, and that would make my numbers alittle better. How long are you typically going between fill ups. ? Im filling up about every 280-300 miles roughly, and that lasts me about 11-12 days.

You should check out the fuelly app. You can track all this with a nice user interface on your phone Great looking spreadsheet though!

Agreed, another satisfied Fuelly-er :]

Caldwell said:

that is the best tracking of MPG I have seen so far.

I wish we could get no ethanol gas in philly, and that would make my numbers alittle better. How long are you typically going between fill ups. ? Im filling up about every 280-300 miles roughly, and that lasts me about 11-12 days.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm actually surprised that's pure gas is pretty easy to find in Western NY. On those fillups you see in the chart, my tank is only slightly more than half empty. i hardly ever let it get much below a half tank. Based in my current mpg, I'm getting about 500 miles per tank.

mmwaggie said:

You should check out the fuelly app. You can track all this with a nice user interface on your phone Great looking spreadsheet though!

Click to expand...

Yeah, I looked at a bunch of them, but couldn't find one that did only what i wanted and wasn't crammed full of adware.

I used to track more than that in a spreadsheet, rolling weighted averages, comparisons to the on board computer, etc. now that I know the on board computers are limited by design and not that accurate, I simply use fuelly phone app. In that app, in the free form notes field, I enter varios notes and still track out of habit the EVIC values. Not sure why though, as EVIC is not even estimating MPG for a full tank of fuel (only about 200 rolling miles). The phone app is a lot quicker than a xls file in a phone...

Try aCar. Does exactly what you did

Extensive data is always a blast to play with, verifying trends, bugs, and the "unknown unknowns." lol.

I would include another major variable(s) that might alter data enough to be needed, which is the type of fuel (brand), weather conditions (Depth Altitude, Temp., Humidity), and Mileage on motor. The latter being not as important as the last.

Although, since the weather changes every second, an average for the weather of the day should suffice.

Granted, that's if you want to get down and dirty in data.

I too, am in a similar field. I analyze and interpret data from engineering sampling/devices from Mobile Communication Manufactures like Apple, Samsung, Nokia, HTC, etc. I also will be continuing my studies in Astrophysics, either M-Theory (String Theory) or simply collecting data from the universe and hopefully create a hypothesis that can be tested within the next century. I should have a good 6 years to figure it out, lol. Until then, I will continue to dabble in data like this.

What type of data / code do you work with on a daily basis? I'm actually looking to build a team of developers to work on an application that I have designed. With the new Windows 10 being launched, and the integrated UI muti-device compatibility application design option will help make the application stable on all platforms, which does make the programmers job 10x easier, not developing different UIs for each platform.

Either way, if you have some free time, I'd like to pick your brain. The application will mainly focus around a service that users can decide to use if needed, while also opening up the opportunity to find a freelance job to those that like to work when they want and create their own schedules. I can't say much, for obvious reasons.