There are scattered benefits to having fuel cards.
The world will burn, fuel costs too much, we only have one earth. If you have heard one reason to save fuel, you have heard them all. Let’s face it. Countries like China are smogging up their streets with pollution, Las Vegas is lit up like a Christmas tree, and 200 football fields of Brazilian rainforest are destroyed per day, yet activists claim your SUV is the reason the earth is heating up. Looking at the problem with an air of pragmatism, should you be doing your best to save fuel?
This is a tricky issue because fuel did take you a lot further, not so long ago. Cars were significantly lighter, so a tank of fuel would last you a week. We then entered a period where cars became a lot more powerful and significantly heavier, at which point the weight and the power made cars far less fuel-efficient. So now we have entered a period where hybrids, almost hybrids, and even economy cars can save fuel in various ways.
Some cars turn themselves off when you are at traffic lights. Some brands like Smart have found ways of using fiberglass shells that are far safer and far lighter than metals. Then there is the fact that even economy cars have far better machining and build quality than cars from as recently as ten years ago. The ability to machine tool and print parts that are so precise has helped make cars far more efficient. In short, your vehicles and vans are probably saving you more in fuel costs than you could have possibly hoped from an older car.
One tips their hat to the eco-conscious people who work to save fuel and fuel money because they care about the earth, but if you are going to enter that realm, then don’t be a hypocrite about it.
These sorts of people are the same people who get their olives in supermarkets from the other side of the world. These people change their phones every two years and buy items from China rather than from local producers because Chinese goods are cheaper.
If you are going to do it for the environment, then do it right. Otherwise, you are no better than the pointless fools who claim to be vegetarians who eat chicken and fish and who post activism content on social media while eating caged eggs because they are a few cents cheaper.
There are scattered benefits to having fuel cards. A commonly quoted one is that you can monitor the spending of many employees during work hours. As a single consumer or small business, you need to understand how the system works to get anything close to a benefit out of it.
In most cases, the card issuer benefits from the fuel companies if they sign people up, and how much of that benefit they pass on to you is up to them. Consider using a fuel card comparison website, but make sure you understand precisely what you are getting before signing up. Many fuel card companies are money-grubbing, and you have to search hard to find a good one that treats you fairly, doesn’t have unforgiving demands, and lets you save money on fuel.
The short answer is, yes, don’t bother trying to save fuel money unless you are genuinely committed to living a green lifestyle. Considering what you now know about technology, the eco-benefits, and fuel cards, you probably shouldn’t be overly concerned with saving fuel or saving money.
Do not confuse anything written in this article with encouragement to waste fuel. Perhaps one of the reasons this article may be offensive to some of the more common-sense-challenged readers is that telling people they shouldn’t bother trying to save money on fuel sounds similar to telling people it is okay to waste fuel. But, wasting fuel is the one thing you should be avoiding. Trying to squeeze every penny out of your fuel budget at this point in history is low-impact and somewhat pointless at best, but wasting fuel is downright irresponsible.
Fuel prices may be high, but it is money down the drain if you are wasteful. The world may be burning, but you are pouring oil on the flames if you purposefully waste fuel. By all means, if you want to save money on your fuel costs with fuel cards and modern cars, then feel free to do so, but never assume that wasting fuel is okay because it isn’t.