Launch day issues and a quick FAQ
August 8, 2008 9:05 AM 
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We've launched! And we have bugs! And we have to get on a plane so it'll be a day or two! Full details and Frequently Asked Questions inside.
- We've been featured on a lot of blogs today (thanks Lifehacker!) and we just crested our first thousand users, so welcome!
- Metric!: We will shortly (hopefully by the end of the day) allow you to set km as distances instead of miles and liters instead of gallons (and we'll add imperial gallons and L/100km type calculations as well).
- Motorcycles/scooters!: By early next week we should have a way to enter in your year, make, and model of two-wheeled vehicle, and we'll use submitted data to build up a database of all known bikes being ridden out there.
- My car/model/engine isn't listed: By next week we should have ways to enter in data that is outside the bounds of what we list (we started with a somewhat complete list of cars available in the US).
- Locations of fuel-ups? Highway vs. City estimates? Prices in something other than US dollars? Email/SMS input? Upload API?: Yep, we've gotten a ton of great ideas that we'd like to also add in the next week or two and these will be some of them. We have a complete running list of major features we're still working on in a previous post.
If you have any other questions or suggestions for data you'd like to see (especially in non-US countries -- how does your country typically report fuel economy?) drop them in here.
posted by mathowie at 9:05 AM
(33 comments total)
- We've been featured on a lot of blogs today (thanks Lifehacker!) and we just crested our first thousand users, so welcome!
- Metric!: We will shortly (hopefully by the end of the day) allow you to set km as distances instead of miles and liters instead of gallons (and we'll add imperial gallons and L/100km type calculations as well).
- Motorcycles/scooters!: By early next week we should have a way to enter in your year, make, and model of two-wheeled vehicle, and we'll use submitted data to build up a database of all known bikes being ridden out there.
- My car/model/engine isn't listed: By next week we should have ways to enter in data that is outside the bounds of what we list (we started with a somewhat complete list of cars available in the US).
- Locations of fuel-ups? Highway vs. City estimates? Prices in something other than US dollars? Email/SMS input? Upload API?: Yep, we've gotten a ton of great ideas that we'd like to also add in the next week or two and these will be some of them. We have a complete running list of major features we're still working on in a previous post.
If you have any other questions or suggestions for data you'd like to see (especially in non-US countries -- how does your country typically report fuel economy?) drop them in here.
Wish we could post more than ONE post per WEEK to what is supposed to be a FORUM. What's up with that. It's a forum. There won't be much discourse if you restrict to one entry per week. Just a friendly suggestion. Happy launch day!
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posted by silente at 11:07 AM on August 8, 2008
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posted by silente at 11:07 AM on August 8, 2008
PS - The iPhone interface is a little messed up as well. The input fields are HAH-YUGE and go off the screen to the left when in portrait mode. In landscape mode the fields fit but the header is shrunken. FYI from one webdeveloper to another. :)
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posted by silente at 11:23 AM on August 8, 2008
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posted by silente at 11:23 AM on August 8, 2008
Okay. Sorry. Last one and I'm done for today. :) Clicking my car in the iPhone entry page gave me a 404. BTW - LOVE the 404 page. everyone should see it, just once.
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posted by silente at 11:28 AM on August 8, 2008
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posted by silente at 11:28 AM on August 8, 2008
Need a way to import my 8 year fuel history. No way I'm going to retype it all....
posted by BlueSubaru at 11:43 AM on August 8, 2008
posted by BlueSubaru at 11:43 AM on August 8, 2008
I noticed a user with the same type of car as mine with wildly varying statistics (e.g. impossible >1000 miles / tank fill ups, etc.). Will there be a way to flag users who enter impossible data to keep the numbers more accurate? The statistics here could start influencing purchase decisions eventually and bad data would be a terrible thing in that case.
posted by ebrandeis at 12:01 PM on August 8, 2008
posted by ebrandeis at 12:01 PM on August 8, 2008
I noticed that when I entered a fill-up on the date of 1/1/2008 it was not counted as being part of my 2008 total $ spent. Changed to 1/2/2008 and it was. Might be a slight bug.
Thanks.
posted by duganj at 12:17 PM on August 8, 2008
Thanks.
posted by duganj at 12:17 PM on August 8, 2008
Not sure if this has been posted before or not, but can you include support for TWITTER? I'm used to twittering status updates and a simple twitter input interface say: @fuelly 104.1 3.759 7.465 would represent how many miles I travelled, the price I paid for the gas, and how many gallons were purchased (MPG).
posted by cjkline83 at 12:44 PM on August 8, 2008
posted by cjkline83 at 12:44 PM on August 8, 2008
I like the twitter plan, but would prefer a direct message (so D fuelly 10473 3.79 9.887) in the MPG format (makes the order easy to remember).
posted by Dianoga at 1:18 PM on August 8, 2008
posted by Dianoga at 1:18 PM on August 8, 2008
Problems adding vehicles in Firefox 3. The make drop down works but the other drop downs do not populate and activate.
The drop downs work fine in IE7.
posted by bwc28 at 2:44 PM on August 8, 2008
The drop downs work fine in IE7.
posted by bwc28 at 2:44 PM on August 8, 2008
Perhaps I've missed something, but I'm not seeing any way to enter my data using a combination of miles travelled and mpg. On a Prius (with a fuel bladder that can vary in capacity from day to day), calculating fuel efficiency based on the gallons filled can be very inaccurate. I could calculate the gallons used with a calculator and the odometer and mpg numbers, but that's enough of a barrier to entry that I suspect I won't bother. Any chance a third input type could be added?
posted by kasei at 3:06 PM on August 8, 2008
posted by kasei at 3:06 PM on August 8, 2008
I second the twitter suggestion. I need a way to do it at the gas station or else I'm simply not going to keep track.
posted by kory at 3:30 PM on August 8, 2008
posted by kory at 3:30 PM on August 8, 2008
Very soon, you'll be able to do something like "d fuelly 321.5 4.029 16.134" and have that show up as 321.5 miles traveled by 16.134 gallons purchased at 4.029 on your primary car.
We're working on a ton of stuff right now, but early next week this will probably be in place.
posted by mathowie at 4:00 PM on August 8, 2008
We're working on a ton of stuff right now, but early next week this will probably be in place.
posted by mathowie at 4:00 PM on August 8, 2008
@ebrandeis I have one of those HUGE tanks. 966 miles actually. It's because I don't have the data for the fuel up before that one. So it's calculating based on two tanks. Thus the discrepancy. I've already had a +1 vote for a checkbox indicating that there's a missing tank before the one you're entering. Should help with the problem.
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posted by silente at 10:21 PM on August 8, 2008
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posted by silente at 10:21 PM on August 8, 2008
Metric would be great and the possibility of common models outside the US - I drive a BMW 320D here in Ireland that gets about 60 mpg according to the digital display (but that is an imperial gallon).
However, I would love to track this and see how many L/100km I am getting and how this compares with outer models.
posted by conorb at 5:44 AM on August 9, 2008
However, I would love to track this and see how many L/100km I am getting and how this compares with outer models.
posted by conorb at 5:44 AM on August 9, 2008
Congrats on getting your first thousand users. Is there a way for us early adopters (and others) to know what user ID and/ or sign up we were in the initial sign ups?
posted by sean at 9:37 AM on August 9, 2008
posted by sean at 9:37 AM on August 9, 2008
German model Ford Mondeo missing... would love to compare stats. Any ideas if the Mondeo was marketed under other names worldwide? This is a great idea, I have been waiting for something like this for a long time
posted by roague at 10:14 AM on August 9, 2008
posted by roague at 10:14 AM on August 9, 2008
Waiting patiently to be able to enter metric data. Canadian drivers would love this site if we didn't have all that math to do. ;)
posted by chrisjtaylor at 10:37 AM on August 9, 2008
posted by chrisjtaylor at 10:37 AM on August 9, 2008
I would suggest an integration with jott. This would make uploading a fill up a breeze. www.jott.com
posted by mingo3369 at 10:58 AM on August 9, 2008
posted by mingo3369 at 10:58 AM on August 9, 2008
I'd love to be able to share my car with my partner (another fuelly user) so that we can both add fuel-ups, since she uses it at least as much as me, and fuels up more often.
posted by Bevan at 9:08 PM on August 9, 2008
posted by Bevan at 9:08 PM on August 9, 2008
Yeah, we had a very basic car sharing bit of code in place and ready to go, but it opened up a bunch of potential problems down the road (what to do if you sell the car/break off the relationship, etc) that we didn't release it on day one.
I'm wanting the feature as well, since I'm currently tracking my wife's car and she has to tell me her details to enter, so I suspect we'll hammer out the problems we couldn't solve before launch and add it in the next week or so.
posted by mathowie at 10:30 PM on August 9, 2008
I'm wanting the feature as well, since I'm currently tracking my wife's car and she has to tell me her details to enter, so I suspect we'll hammer out the problems we couldn't solve before launch and add it in the next week or so.
posted by mathowie at 10:30 PM on August 9, 2008
I second the call for car sharing. Lot's of cars have multiple drivers who fill up the tank. It would be nice if I could share the ability to add a fuel record for a car without sharing a login.
posted by pjdoland at 7:15 AM on August 10, 2008
posted by pjdoland at 7:15 AM on August 10, 2008
I really like the site so far! A lot more features than Fuelfrog! Though it would be nice to have Twitter integration - the mobile entry is a little cumbersome. Using Fuelfrog, I loved being able to tweet my fill ups. Thanks for a great concept.
posted by nkelly at 1:09 AM on August 11, 2008
posted by nkelly at 1:09 AM on August 11, 2008
You've got the VW Golf, but not the GTI. So, doesn't seem to be the right options available for transmission. I.e. doesn't list the 5-spd automatic with available "Tiptronic" manual shifting.
Cool site, though. I'll be checking back soon.
posted by jackholt at 1:15 AM on August 11, 2008
Cool site, though. I'll be checking back soon.
posted by jackholt at 1:15 AM on August 11, 2008
I think you guys should track where the gas was purchased and at what price. So that if someone finds a cheap gas station in our area we'd get notified. Like grab a zip code or city name where we live, and enter the zip of the gas station if known, then tell people, hey someone just got gas for $3.89 near you at a BP station on Blue Heron Blvd in Riviera Beach, FL, that's 10 cents less per galon then your last fill up. It'd be too cool if you could somehow incorporate Google Maps Mobile Current Location feature to help us enter the location details too.
posted by pixelwiz at 7:23 AM on August 11, 2008
posted by pixelwiz at 7:23 AM on August 11, 2008
What I would like is a meter for my car (on a mobile phone or gps) that shows me how much I've spent on gas so far this trip. Doesn't have to be too accurate, I just want to see I spent $8 running around doing errands this morning.
posted by Monty at 1:43 PM on August 11, 2008
posted by Monty at 1:43 PM on August 11, 2008
Is there a correct way to compensate for a missing tank other than to throw out the data? You could try to guess the total gallons used, but that would still be fairly suspect. Unless there is a reasonable way to correct for this, I think the best way to handle it is to encourage users not to enter data when part of it is missing or incorrect and add the ability to flag obviously incorrect data (i.e. missing tanks leading to 70+ mpg on a 25 mpg car).
posted by ebrandeis at 1:44 PM on August 11, 2008
posted by ebrandeis at 1:44 PM on August 11, 2008
We Irish like our British neighbours do this: fuel sales in litres, consumption in miles per UK gallon!
posted by michaeljamorgan at 11:09 AM on August 12, 2008
posted by michaeljamorgan at 11:09 AM on August 12, 2008
I'm really enjoying the site so far. Just wanted to suggest a feature..
When entering a fill-up, I'd like the stats to be able to be emailed to myself or other email addresses.
The wife handles the banking, works at the credit union, and has like 27 account for everything. She wants me to frigging call her very time I fill up. So I figure if I use Fuelly every time anyway, maybe I can send a copy of the fill-up to her.
Thanks.
posted by explosivo2k2 at 6:23 PM on August 13, 2008
When entering a fill-up, I'd like the stats to be able to be emailed to myself or other email addresses.
The wife handles the banking, works at the credit union, and has like 27 account for everything. She wants me to frigging call her very time I fill up. So I figure if I use Fuelly every time anyway, maybe I can send a copy of the fill-up to her.
Thanks.
posted by explosivo2k2 at 6:23 PM on August 13, 2008
nthing more flexibility in units.
Ideally I think many of us (particularly us awkward UK types) would like the ability to select fuel units (US gall, UK gall, litre), distance units (km, mile) and consumption units (mpg, km/l) separately.
posted by popkinson at 2:12 AM on August 22, 2008
Ideally I think many of us (particularly us awkward UK types) would like the ability to select fuel units (US gall, UK gall, litre), distance units (km, mile) and consumption units (mpg, km/l) separately.
posted by popkinson at 2:12 AM on August 22, 2008
yep, popkinson, we're almost done with the custom fuel-up options so you can track miles and load up in L.
posted by mathowie at 11:25 AM on August 22, 2008
posted by mathowie at 11:25 AM on August 22, 2008
I just joined and love the site. In addition to already requested octane, city/highway fields, I also have been tracking AC % used, AVG MPH, MTBE % and the OBC MPG calc'd by my MINI (helps to see how accurate the OBC really is)
posted by wearlaz at 9:21 AM on September 4, 2008
posted by wearlaz at 9:21 AM on September 4, 2008
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