Tag Archives: trip planning

C2G Launches Cost2Drive iPhone App!

Cost2Drive iPhone App

Revolutionary App Makes Calculating Driving Costs a Breeze!

UPDATE: We’ve just launched version 1.0.1 which has an airfare comparison feature.  Read more here.

Ever try to figure out how much it costs to drive somewhere?  It’s easy, right?  Just multiply the distance by the price of gas.  Wait, you also have to factor in the fuel efficiency (MPG) of the car you are driving.  Hmmm, and gas prices where you live be very different from where you’ll have to refuel during your trip.  Maybe this isn’t as easy as you first thought.

That’s why we created Cost2Drive, to help you quickly determine the cost of driving places, and why today we’re VERY excited to announce that right on the eve of Labor Day Weekend we’ve launched an iPhone version of our popular Web application that makes it even easier to calculate trip costs, and that it’s now available for download here in the App Store at a special introductory price of only $1.99.

With gas prices remaining stubbornly high, driving costs can quickly diminish a household budget.  For a family planning a trip from New York to Disney World in Orlando it can cost over $400 in fuel driving a typical SUV, and if you haven’t factored these costs into your vacation budget it can be quite a shock at the end of the month when the credit card bill arrives.

App Uses GPS for Starting address

Whether you’re planning a family vacation, a college road trip or just want to see if its worthwhile to drive to the next town to get a great deal, the Cost2Drive iPhone app makes it super easy to quickly determine the cost of the trip.

Nested in an elegant design, the Cost2Drive iPhone app is beautiful in its simplicity despite the very complex technology underneath.  Unlike other fuel cost calculators, the Cost2Drive iPhone app doesn’t ask you to manually enter dozens of things like your vehicle’s MPG, route distances and gas prices – it does it all for you making it the most sophisticated trip calculator on the market (the same traits that made our Website so popular with both consumers and the press alike.)

One of the most unique features of the Cost2Drive iPhone app is its ability to factor in different prices for gas as  you travel along a route.  Gas prices can vary tremendously from state to state, or even city to city and so our app takes that into account by pulling current gas prices from refueling points along the way. We determine these points based on the driving range of your car (how far it will travel on a single tank of gas), information that we’ve painstakingly collected on over 20,000 cars and light trucks in the US.  Although no app can be 100% accurate in estimating fuel costs, many users of Cost2Drive.com have told us that our Galculator (the technology that powers both the Website and iPhone app) has been accurate to within $1 for trips over a thousand miles in distance.

Select and Save up to 5 Vehicles

Select and Save up to 5 Vehicles

The Cost2Drive iPhone app leverages many of the unique capabilities of the iPhone to make it even easier to calculate trip costs.   For example, the app utilizes the iPhone’s location services to automatically fill in your current location as the starting point of your route (this can easily be modified by the user).  The new app also enables you to auto-fill the address of a friend from your iPhone address book, so you can see what it costs to visit family and friends with the tap of a button.  The Cost2Drive iPhone app also lets you store up to 5 vehicles in the app, and you can easily  compare the cost of driving these different vehicles with a simple swipe of your finger.

Add Custom Vehicles

The Cost2Drive iPhone app also provides you with the ability to manually enter and save vehicles and choose from 3 grades of fuel (regular, premium and diesel).  This means that owners of vehicles that aren’t yet included on the app (i.e., RVs, motorcycles, U-Haul trucks) can  also take advantage of this great app to plan trips.

Just as with the Cost2Drive Website, you’ll be able to view maps displaying your route and where you’ll need to refuel along the way, and the app also helps you save money by finding the cheapest gas at these refueling points from over 100,000 gas stations in the US (provided by OPIS).

Maps and Gas Prices

The map and fuel prices are presented in the iPhone’s Web browser  via a new redesigned version of Cost2Drive.com.  We’ll share more on that in a future post, but for now purchasers of the iPhone app will enjoy this special sneak preview of some great new enhancements we’re making to the Cost2Drive Website to better serve your trip planning needs.

Don’t wait to purchase your version of the Cost2Drive iPhone app as this introductory pricing will only be available for a limited time.  Download the app today and let us know what you think!

Happy Driving!Apple iTunes App Store

Apple, iPad, iPhone and iPod touch are registered trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. The App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.

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Where We’re Headed with Cost2Drive

Helping People Plan Better Car Trips

2011 has shaped up to be an exciting year for us at C2G.  We began the year with a great deal of TV coverage coinciding with the spike in gas prices.

TV Coverage of Cost2Drive.com

Then in late spring we decided to apply to the NYC TechStars incubator program and spent a few thrilling weeks heading to New York to interface with the TeschStars team and fellow entrepreneurs.   It was a wonderful experience and though we didn’t make the final cut, we all felt great about making it to the round of 30 out over 1,000 applicants.  We always felt we had something special and its seems the world is beginning to take notice.

As part of the TechStars application process we began to share our broader vision of where we are going with our flagship application Cost2Drive.  We introduced a new company name (CarTripper) which better reflects our mission of helping people plan better car trips.   We’ll be sharing more on this in the coming months, but you can get a glimpse of this new vision as part of a new competition we’re involved with on Bloomberg TV.   Bloomberg TV is working with TechStars on a number of initiatives including an upcoming TV series that chronicles the 11 startups accepted into the NYC winter program.

They are also hosting a contest on Facebook for the best startup ideas, which is where we come in.  We were just notified by Bloomberg that we’ve been selected as one of five finalists for this week’s competition (week #2).  At the end of the week (seven days from August 10th) the winner will be selected for Week #2 and will then move on to the next round to compete with all the weekly winners.

You can get a glimpse of our expanded vision for CarTripper by viewing the video we submitted to TechStars as part of the application process.  The video is available on the Bloomberg TV Facebook page in this special section created for TechStars (note: you’ll need to ‘like’ the page to be able to view the video and vote).

We have some exciting product releases right around the bend that we’ll be sharing more news on soon.  Meanwhile if you like where we’re headed with CarTripper let us know by voting for us in this Bloomberg TV – TechStars startup competition.

Happy Driving!