# Projected Annual: your whole year, built from one real tank

Most drivers carry a fuzzy number in their head: “my car costs me… some amount… a year?” You know it’s a lot. You don’t know what it is. And the EPA sticker on the window doesn’t help — that’s a lab estimate for a driver who isn’t you, on roads you don’t drive. The new Projected Annual card in VeraMile replaces that fuzzy number with a real one. It takes how you actually drive and projects it out over a full year — fuel, upkeep, and the total. No guessing, no sticker math. What it shows you Three numbers, up top: • Miles — your real annual pace, projected from your driving (not a national average). • Fuel — what you’ll spend on gas this year at your MPG and your prices, with the monthly figure underneath. • Total — fuel plus upkeep: maintenance, recurring costs, and any upgrades you’ve logged, all rolled into one honest yearly cost. That’s the whole point. Not “what does gas cost,” but “what does owning and driving this car cost,” in a number you can actually plan around. It gets smarter the more you log Here’s the part we’re proud of, because it’s the honest part. On day one, with zero fill-ups, Projected Annual is an estimate — EPA combined MPG, a default fuel price, and a placeholder of 15,000 miles. We tag it clearly as an estimate, because it is one. Log your first fill-up and it swaps in your real fuel prices. Log two or more and it switches to your real MPG and your annualized mileage. The “Estimate” tag disappears, and the card now reads “Based on your real driving.” It stops being a guess about a generic car and becomes a measurement of yours. We also built in a couple of guardrails so the number stays trustworthy. Your projected mileage is clamped to a sane range and blended gently with the placeholder over your first 90 days. Translation: one big road-trip tank won’t suddenly tell you you’re driving 50,000 miles a year and spending a fortune. The projection settles into reality as the data earns it. The fun part: “What if my MPG was…” Under the numbers is a slider, and this is where it gets a little addictive. Drag it and VeraMile instantly recomputes your entire year at a different fuel economy — fuel cost, monthly cost, total, and the dollar difference versus where you are now. Green when you’re saving, red when you’re spending. A real example, straight from a Civic Hybrid averaging 39.2 MPG over ~23,645 miles a year: • Today: about $1,951 in fuel, $17,916 all-in — and already roughly $990/year ahead of a typical 26 MPG car. • Bump it +20 MPG (to 59.2): you’d save about $659/year — roughly $55 a month back in your pocket. • Drop it −20 MPG (to 19.2): it’d cost about $2,032 more a year, around $169 a month. The slider steps in fine increments right around your real number — −5, −4, −3, −2, −1, 0, +1, +2… — and jumps to ±10 and ±20 at the ends. That’s deliberate. The interesting question usually isn’t “what if I drove a totally different car,” it’s “what’s that extra 2 or 3 MPG actually worth to me?” Now you can see it, in dollars, instantly. Why a few MPG matters more than you’d think Spread across 20,000-plus miles a year, small efficiency changes compound fast. Easing off hard acceleration, keeping your tires properly inflated, dropping the dead weight in your trunk — individually they feel like rounding errors. The slider shows you they’re not. A couple of MPG, held over a year, is a tank or three of free gas. That’s really what Projected Annual is for: turning the abstract “drive efficiently” advice into a number you can watch move. Try it Open VeraMile, head to your vehicle’s Stats tab, and the Projected Annual card is right at the top. If you’re new, log a couple of fill-ups and watch the “Estimate” tag fall away as the projection locks onto your real numbers. Then go play with the slider. We’ll wait. Start tracking free at veramile.com →