Regarding plane tickets – we do provide that information for routes over 200 miles. We display the cheapest fare found on kayak.com for the route specified. And we’d love to add Amtrak as well.

Thanks for the feedback.

Jim

And it ignores the wear and tear on the car, which is more than the cost of gas. How about adding the wear and tear calculation, then comparing to the the cost of Amtrak tickets and plane tickets for the same trip?

Happy Driving!

Melissa, your guesstimated price for premium might be high. I live in O.C. (not exactly an inexpensive region) and am seeing premium for $2.13 lately. Hopefully it’ll stay in that range (I have to buy premium for my ’72 BMW 2002.). Happy driving!

I checked the trip site for my recent trip to Outer Banks from PA. It’s not too far off though it didn’t give me round trip figures which I thought was odd. OK backup is running… I’m running to bed!

However, it assumes that I use regular gas, and that I will be buying the cheapest gas available–ARCO, unbranded gas, Costco–averaging $1.78/gallon. So the fact that my car takes premium, and that I use a higher-quality detergent gasoline (such as Chevron), is not taken into consideration.

By my own pencil-and-paper calculations, it would take me just under 50 gallons of gas* to get me to my destination in northern San Diego county (as I use cruise control, don’t speed, and have a manual transmission). At an average price of $2.30/gallon, my gas costs would be $115.00.

Granted, it’s only about an $18 difference (although hey, that’s pretty much my entire coffee-and-cheeseburger budget on the road, ya know?). And for most drivers (whose cars run on regular unleaded, and who aren’t brand-fussy), the difference will be even smaller. But it’s such an easy problem to figure out with a pencil and paper and Google maps to give you mileage–I’m not all that impressed, honestly.

*And it could take me even less–I used 25 mpg as a basis because the math was easier, but I usually can get 27-28 on the highway.

A few other things that a person needs to expect to change fuel economy:

-are you running with proper tire pressure?
-are you driving with a full load of passenger or just yourself?
-is the trunk full or luggage or empty?
-are you driving with a/c (summer) or defrost (winter)?
-are you driving against the wind?
-are you driving at a constant speed or not?
-are you using in car items like dvd player, plugged in item in the car port (phone charging, laptop, etc)

All these when you think about it, add up on long drives.

Personally I have taken my car on an 8hr drive on a single tank (alone) and been unable to get that result when there are a few people and suitcases in the car.

last time we drove up, it cost about $250 round trip. now they’re saying $75 (our preferred route is a little longer, though). amazing how that adds up.

For instance, driving from downtown San Francisco to the airport will cost $8.56 but public transit is $5.35. The site gives you the “IRS cost” of driving, so it doesn’t reflect regional gas prices or tolls. An example: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=94111&daddr=SFO&hl=en&geocode=&mra=cc&dirflg=r&sll=37.706505,-122.397575&sspn=0.338438,0.53833&ie=UTF8&z=11

Too bad, I thought I found a new way to waste time.

The way you drive has a lot to do with your fuel efficiency, and while the government says my ’01 Saturn SL2 gets 34mpg highway, in reality I get closer to 38mpg.

I do like how it actually finds gas stations at logical points on your trip and bases the calculation on the actual cost at those stations though. That’s pretty cool.

I’m actually heading down to San Francisco in just a couple weeks, so this will be handy. Thanks!