Box Truck MPG: What it is? And How to Calculate It?

Do you wonder what a box truck's MPG metric is? And how is it calculated?

These are good questions.

Because knowing the box truck's mpg gives you an idea about how many gallons it needs to complete the moving route.

That allows you to calculate the fuel cost of the route, which gives you better chances to prepare your business financial expenses upfront.

That also allows you to understand if the load fits into your overall business expenses goal or not because a box truck's mpg impacts its fuel economy and, at the same time, fuel economy impacts your overall moving budget.

What is a box truck MPG?

Box truck mpg is the cost of gas or fuel expenses that you may have by delivering a load.

Generally, the MPG is the standard metric used to measure the fuel economy of a box truck.

That means the number of miles that a box truck can cover using one gallon of gas.

The MPG number is affected by the current driving conditions.

Box truck MPG averages

Generally, the average MPG for the rental of a box truck looks like below: 

• Smaller trucks (10 feet to 14 feet) average around 12 miles per gallon.
• Medium trucks (15 feet to 19 feet) average around 10 miles per gallon.
• Larger trucks (over 20 feet) get around 8 to 10 miles per gallon.

Note that these gas consumption rates are accurate for ideal driving circumstances. However, some factors may affect the box truck's MPG number.

The factors that may impact the fuel cost estimation

When you estimate the fuel cost of the load, consider the below factors:

• Gas prices: Look up the latest averages for gas prices across the country. Typically, the 10-foot van and 16-foot truck use regular gas, and the larger trucks, like the 24-footer, use diesel fuel.
• Distance: The longer the distance, the more gas you need to deliver. Calculate the total miles of route move. Be aware that making additional stops and detours adds up miles to the total route distance. 
• Type of vehicle: Trucks with smaller engines tend to have better fuel economy than larger ones. That is because a large engine increases the weight of the truck, which means that it requires more fuel to finish the delivery.
• Truck size: The size of the truck can also determine the amount of fuel it needs to complete the move.
• Fuel tank capacity: Fuel tank capacity may impact the number of times needed to take a reroute to fuel the box truck.
• Fuel quality:  The quality of fuel can also affect the vehicle’s fuel mileage. Good quality fuel reduces engine friction and improves the truck’s fuel economy performance.
• Type of fuel: The type of fuel also influences gas mileage as well as costs. For instance, small- and medium-sized trucks like the 10-foot and the 16-foot box trucks use regular fuel. On the other hand, large-sized trucks such as the 24 feet long-box vehicle use diesel fuel. While diesel fuel has more mileage, it’s more expensive than regular fuel.
• Gas prices:  The average price of gas varies from state to state. So, if you have to drive through a state (or states) with higher or lower gas prices, plan ahead of time to stop and fuel at a cheaper gas station.
• Driving conditions: Consider the thing that the box truck's mpg is going to have better MPG while driving on the highway. On other hand, if the box truck drives mostly on city streets, it can get 3 to 5 miles MPG more.
• Drive style: Drivers who speed up aggressively experience higher fuel mileage than those who drive slower. The reason is that by accelerating too quickly, the vehicle burns more fuel than when driving slowly to get up to speed.

The average gas tank size for box trucks?

The table below addresses the various box truck sizes, each with its own box truck tank size.

How to calculate the total fuel cost per move of a box truck?

The easiest way to calculate the fuel cost of a box truck is by using the below calculators:

1. MPG Calculator.

2. MPG calculator.

All you have to do is tell these calculators the destination, and the type of your truck (box truck), and the calculator will do the rest.

To these calculations, these calculators use the below formula:

Fuel cost = Total miles/Truck MPG × (average cost per gallon).

Total miles - the number of miles in the entire moving route from the pickup to the final destination.

Truck MPG - the number of miles per gallon that the box truck drives.

For example, if you are traveling 600 miles in a large truck that gets 6 miles per gallon (mpg), and gas averages about $3.15, then you'll be spending $315 on gas to travel 600 miles.

Knowing the above formula to calculate the total cost of fuel per move for a truck, you can also do the calculations manually.

Why would you do it manually?

Because you can get more precise calculations when you take into account other factors that may impact the total cost of fuel per truck.