Spritmonitor is a German

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

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

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

is provided by the users of the website themselves (

crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...

) 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,

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

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 The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

-, Android-, and

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-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 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 foundat ...

also references Spritmonitor in their guide to buying used cars.

Figures

The Spritmonitor data base contains over 1 million vehicles of 800,000 users. All the users together logged over 50 million fuel-ups which correspond to a driven distance of 25 billion kilometres.''Spritmonitor''
Spritmonitor. Retrieved March 2nd, 2025.

References

{{Reflist 2001 establishments in Germany German websites Internet properties established in 2001