How do I Calculate the Cost of Fuel Your Trucks Use?

If you own a trucking company, you need to know how much fuel your trucks use. This information is very important for finding the most profitable loads. About the rules of calculation, we will tell you today.

If you look at average values, semi-trailers travel about 6.5 miles on every gallon of fuel. However, this figure varies greatly depending on where you drive, how you drive, and the technical condition of the vehicle.

So, how do you calculate the cost of fuel your trucks are using?

To do so, follow our instructions:

1. Go to the nearest gas station and fill up your truck 100%. Take a piece of paper with a pen or smartphone and write down the number of gallons and the numbers from the odometer. Let’s imagine the vehicle uses 200 gallons of fuel and the odometer reads 68,000 miles.
2. Some time later, when you need to refuel the truck again, do the same thing. Go back to our example. We’ll get 190 gallons of fuel and 69,083 on the odometer.
3. Subtract the earlier odometer values from the later ones. This will tell you how many miles you drove on the last tank of diesel fuel. In our example: 69 083 – 68 000 = 1 083.
4. Then all that’s left to do is divide the number of miles you drove by the number of gallons you just paid for at the gas station. That is, you have to divide 1,083 by 190. Using this chart, we’ve determined that your truck’s fuel consumption is 5.7 miles per gallon.

Now we come to the main point. You now have the opportunity to calculate your fuel consumption per mile. Ask for the current price per gallon of diesel fuel (as of this writing, it’s $2.10) and divide it by the number of miles your truck travels per gallon: $2.10/ 5.7=36.84 cents. When rounded upward, that’s 37 cents.

What is this for?

This information allows you to calculate to the nearest cent the profitability of any load for your trucking company.

Keep in mind that the miles per gallon of a truck will constantly change. This is due to vehicle maintenance, tires on the truck, and road conditions along the routes. Regular analysis of fuel consumption is a guarantee of choosing the right loads and setting the best freight rates.