Spritmonitor is a German

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wi ...

that collects and delivers information about the

fuel consumption A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy but ...

of vehicles under real-life conditions. The

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is provided by the users of the website themselves ( crowdsourcing) who log the fuel-ups of their vehicles in the system.

History

The website was created by Thomas Fischl and Dominik Fisch as a side project to their study of computer science at the

University of Passau The University of Passau (''Universität Passau'' in German) is a public research university located in Passau, Lower Bavaria, Germany. Founded in 1973, it is the youngest university in Bavaria and consequently has the most modern campus in the s ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

in 2001. Initially, the project was known under the name „Consumption Tables“ and was renamed to „Spritmonitor“ after a testing phase („Sprit“ is in Germany colloquial speech for fuel). The website is operated and owned by the ''Fisch und Fischl GmbH'' company which was founded in 2008.

Functions

Spritmonitor offers two main functions: First, it is possible for a car owner to log and track fuel up data and all vehicle-based expenses in the system. Based on this data many different analyses can be performed (e.g., fuel consumption depending on season, kind of fuel, used tires, etc.). Spritmonitor can be used on the road with the corresponding iPhone-, Android-, and

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design l ...

-Apps as well as with the mobile version of the website. Second, the data base entries of Spritmonitor users can be viewed and analysed by others. Thereby, future car owners do not only have to rely on the fuel consumption published by car manufacturers but they can also get information about the-to-be-expected real-life fuel consumption of a vehicle before buying it.

Use in scientific studies and tests

The Spritmonitor data base has reached such a significance in size and quality that it can be used in scientific studies. The ICCT uses the data set in its annual report “From Laboratory To Road” as well as Transport and Environment in its studies “Mind The Gap” and “How clean are electric cars?”. Also the

Deutsche Umwelthilfe Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V. (DUH, using the English name Environmental Action Germany) is a non-profit environmental and consumer protection association, supported by public and private project grants and donations. It is a member of the European ...

refers to Spritmonitor in its publication “Verbrauchsabweichungen in Deutschland und den USA”. Besides those scientific studies, the Spritmonitor data is also used in vehicles tests of different media. The German consumer organisation

Stiftung Warentest Stiftung Warentest is a German consumer organisation and foundation involved in investigating and comparing goods and services in an unbiased way. It was founded on 4 December 1964 by the Federal Republic of Germany as an independent foundation ...

also references Spritmonitor in their guide to buying used cars.

Figures

The Spritmonitor data base contains over 1 million vehicles of 750,000 users. All the users together logged over 46 million fuel-ups which correspond to a driven distance of 23 billion kilometres.''Spritmonitor''
Spritmonitor. Retrieved February 3, 2024.

References

{{Reflist German websites