Fuel consumption has always been affected by how vehicles are driven and road conditions.
But something strange has happened to the gap between the advertised mpg figures and the reality. It is getting inexorably wider. In fact, as cars become increasingly efficient on paper, their on-road performance becomes less and less predictable.
The average reality gap between advertised and actual mpgs now approaches up to 30%. Within that range are drivers who can comfortably beat the official mpg figures and drivers who fall as much as 50 mpg short!
When mpg performance is all over the place, fleets and costs become tricky to manage. Expected cost savings don’t materialise. Budgets become unpredictable.
But it’s not all bad news. By using real-world mpg data, you can get back in control. You can introduce strategies to remedy poor performance and propagate best practice. You can reassess vehicle policies.
So what do you need to obtain a clear picture of real-world mpgs in your own fleet?
- Fuel volume used, per vehicle
- Purchase cost of the fuel used, per vehicle
- Mileage, per vehicle
When handwritten expense forms were the norm and few fleets practices mileage capture, the administrative burden of collecting and analysing the required data would have been immense. All that has changed thanks to online mileage capture, fuel cards and telematics.
It is now entirely practical to manage fuel costs on a ‘real’ case by case basis.
Click here to read our handy tips on how to use real world data to manage costs more effectively.
