Overview
Work out what a trip really costs in fuel before you leave. Enter the distance, your car's efficiency in L/100km or MPG, the fuel price per litre or per gallon, and how many people are splitting the cost. The page returns the total fuel cost and the per-person share, recalculating instantly and entirely in your browser - no data leaves the device.
How It Works
Type the trip distance and choose kilometres or miles. Enter efficiency with its matching unit - litres per 100 km, the common European figure, or MPG. Enter the fuel price and choose whether that price is per litre or per gallon. Finally set the number of people sharing the cost; the default is one. Two result cards show the total cost and the per-person amount. Change any input and both figures update on the spot, so you can slide the passenger count up and down to see how the split moves.
Step-by-Step Usage Guide
- Enter the trip distance and switch the unit to miles if needed.
- Enter your car's efficiency and pick L/100km or MPG.
- Enter the current fuel price per litre or per gallon.
- Set how many people split the cost and read the two result cards.
Technical Specifications & Standards
Internally everything is normalised to litres and kilometres. Miles are converted at 1.60934 km per mile. Efficiency in L/100km becomes litres via (km / 100) x efficiency; an MPG figure is used as kilometres per gallon-equivalent, which treats the number as US mpg. That is an honest simplification worth knowing: one imperial (UK) gallon equals about 1.2 US gallons, so UK mpg figures are roughly 20 percent higher than US figures for the same car, and entering them here will understate your litres consumed. When the price is per gallon, the litre total is converted using 0.264172 gallons per litre before multiplying by price. Both factors are standard unit definitions. Fuel cost is only part of driving cost - depreciation, tyres and servicing are excluded by design. A small subtlety: efficiency entered as zero produces a division by zero, so leave a realistic number in that field.
Targeted Use Cases
- Splitting a road trip's fuel bill fairly between passengers.
- Comparing whether driving or taking the train is cheaper for a weekend trip.
- Estimating a commute's weekly fuel spend at current pump prices.
- Checking how worse efficiency from a roof box or detour changes trip cost.
Notes & Gotchas
- Use your real measured efficiency from onboard computer figures, not the brochure number.
- UK drivers: multiply your mpg figure by 1.2 to get the US mpg this tool expects.
- Update the fuel price field to today's pump price; it is not fetched automatically.
- Set people to 1 first to see the true total before splitting.
Frequently Asked Questions
MPG or L/100km - which should I use?
Whichever your car or local listings report. The maths is equivalent once the unit is set correctly. Note the MPG path assumes US gallons; UK imperial mpg figures are about 20 percent higher and will understate fuel use.
Does the result include tolls or wear and tear?
No. The output is strictly fuel cost, from distance, efficiency and price. Tolls, parking and vehicle depreciation are separate.
How is the per-person split calculated?
The total fuel cost is divided evenly by the passenger count. There is no weighting for who drives or how much luggage each person brings.
Why is my result slightly different from my car's trip computer?
Trip computers measure actual consumption over real conditions, while this page multiplies a single efficiency number by a nominal distance. Differences of a few percent are normal.