Why I created SimpleFuel

The drive for a simple mileage tracking app

As a kid in the 80s, my father kept a pen and a pocket notebook in the glove compartment of each of his cars. Every time we stopped for gas, he would write down the following info:

• Date
• Current odometer
• Miles added since the last fill up (current minus last odometer)
• Gallons added
• Cost per gallon
• Miles per gallon (miles added divided by gallons added)

We'll save the "Why" behind this ritual for another post, but in seeing the consistency with which he did this, I believed that recording gas mileage was just as part of owning a car as washing it and doing oil changes. So when I started driving, I picked up this habit, and when I bought my first car (a 2000 Tacoma), my first upgrade was a pen and pocket notebook in the glove compartment.

Fast forward to 2011 and I joined the smartphone movement with an Apple iPhone 4S. It wasn't long before I was searching the App Store for something to replace that notebook...I was sure there was an app for this. Indeed there was, and I became a long time user of the Fuelly App. (Of course, I want you to use SimpleFuel, but Fuelly is a great alternative if SimpleFuel isn't for you!)

But why even bother when modern cars all calculate trip mileage and many even display instantaneous fuel efficiency? One, because I don't trust that they are accurate (another topic for another post). Two, because they don't make accessing the historical data and identifying trends very easy, if possible at all. Three, because this habit has always been part of driving a car for me, and I like doing it. I want to be able to look back at my car's history (both gas fill-ups and general maintenance) and look at any trends in efficiency and cost, and have a clear picture of the current state of my car's health. That's what I want from a mileage tracking app, and what SimpleFuel sets out to do.

I used Fuelly for many years right up until releasing SimpleFuel, but there were always a few things I wanted different. With these in mind, I set out to create a modern, simple mileage tracking app with the following characteristics:

• Simple: I wanted a simple app. Easy to navigate, just the essential info, and minimal scrolling and tapping.
• Modern: Designed for the latest iOS with a clean user experience and user interface.
• Current: Today's cars aren't just using gas, they're using electricity, too. SimpleFuel had to address not only gas-powered cars, but also electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, and plug-in hybrid vehicles and present metrics that make sense for each category.

Go time...

In 2025, I changed jobs and my commute jumped from about 50 miles per day to double that. My plans for buying my dream truck, a Toyota 4Runner that gets 18MPG, quickly became impractical given the miles I'd be adding. I was also at a point in my life where buying new — something I'd never done before — wasn't completely financially irresponsible. So I started car shopping. Coming from a long line of Hondas and Toyotas, and not loving the aesthetics and tradeoffs that come with electric vehicles, I finally decided on a 2025 Honda Civic Hatchback Hybrid with the Sport Touring trim (in white!)

As I was adding this new car to my Fuelly fleet, the little things that had been bugging me about the app got me thinking that I should just build the app that I want. I'm a mechanical engineer by training, but I knew with the help of modern tools, I could figure out this simple app. Right?

It turns out it's not as simple as it sounds to make an app that's simple!

But I was determined and had no deadlines, so I spent the last year building SimpleFuel. It has expanded beyond my initial vision over time, but I've always kept the three guiding principles in mind: Simple, modern, and current.

And we're off!

My motivation behind SimpleFuel is bringing the practice of mileage tracking that has been ingrained in me for decades into the present, and to build the app that I wanted.

I have a lot of ideas for SimpleFuel to bring added functionality such as iCloud backup, imports from additional apps (Fuelly imports are already supported), and additional data analytics to the core features. For now, I'm really excited to launch this app, and hope that you find it useful!

-JK