Fuel cost is arguably one of the most expensive expenditures faced by fleet and transportation companies. KATSANA knows this first hand when some of our larger enterprise customers with massive fleets spent upwards of RM800,000 per month just for fuel.
With that kind of spending, any effort to reduce fuel usage can help companies to improve their bottom-line, increase profits and indirectly benefit fleet operations by reducing on-road time, costs affiliated with irresponsible vehicle usage and maintenance.
We have always envisioned KATSANA Advanced GPS Tracking and Fleet Management system to be a complete solution for companies and enterprises to manage, monitor and protect their vehicles. Today, we have moved a step closer to that vision by exploring capabilities to detect vehicle fuel level, actively monitor the fuel usage, and ultimately notify vehicle owners (fleet owners to be exact) whenever KATSANA detects irregular or suspicious usage of fuel.
Fuel monitoring using analog fuel gauges or ultrasonic fuel level sensor
Over the past few months, we have done several continuous trials to monitoring and track fuel usages for trucks and lorries. The trials relied on installation of fuel gauges onto externals tanks of these vehicles.
You’ve got that right. Using this method, that means we would have to:
- Additional hardware (analog fuel gauge / ultrasonic fuel level sensor) to detect the fuel level
- Install the fuel level module onto external fuel tanks
- Extend power cable to run the fuel module
- Expose the fuel tracking level sensor to the elements.
Over time as we went through the trials, we soon realize this method of detecting fuel levels on lorries and trucks is not exactly the best possible option. The limitations of using analog fuel level stick to track fuel usage are aplenty. For one, it means we can only use fuel monitoring system for vehicles with large external fuel tanks. This directly limits our feature from being used by small vehicles such as sedans and 4×4 trucks.
There has got to be a better way to detect fuel level irrespective of vehicles types. We want KATSANA’s active fuel monitoring and protection system to be used by as many fleets as possible regardless of the vehicle sets; from sedans to jeeps, from 1-tonne lorries to 24-wheelers. We want KATSANA to be the best GPS tracking system available on the market.
Monitoring of fuel usage using OBDII port.
We have long realised that it is possible for us to monitor vital vehicle information using the OBD port. The port comes standard on all new vehicles since 1994 and its very likely that your vehicle has one too.
There are many providers in the market that sell GPS tracking systems based on OBD ports. However based on our past experience, we are not in favor of integrating KATSANA with OBD-based hardwares due to multiple reasons revolving around safety and security.
You see, OBD ports are standard on all newer vehicles. But standardisation of the port comes at a price. It is well, errr standard. That means, the port is easily accessible by anyone.
Accessibility to reach OBD-based trackers is certain not a good thing when it comes to securing a vehicle. Thus, while outputs from OBD are detailed and thorough, it doesnt help when the device can easily be detached, altered and thrown away by a vehicle hijacker.
We decided not to pursue this option as we are in favor of a secure, and covert method in tracking your vehicles, and its fuel usage.
Exploring active fuel monitoring for vehicles
Today, we pick apart our own vehicle (a Proton Inspira / rebadged of Mitsubishi Lancer ’08) and explore ways to actively monitor the fuel level for the car.
The mission is, we want to track the fuel level of the vehicle and get it transmitted to KATSANA live, every 5-10 seconds. This we believe is the fastest update interval of any GPS tracking system in the market (Malaysia), and with it, enables us to monitor the fuel level of the vehicle with utmost detail.
The car has been a testbed of innovation, and a guinea pig for new features in Katsana since its inception and today, it lived on to see another day when we conclude preliminary tests as a success.
At the end of the day, we were quite surprised that its actually quite straigthforward and we could integrate the data rather immediately into our advanced GPS tracking platform. We hope that we will be able to show case this new feature soon for our customers. We have a lot of plans on how to take advantage of this new set of information retrieved from your car, to truly make your fleet efficient, and accountable.
Thats it for now. Malaysia Boleh!
Our senior technician, Wak Jaini with Syafiq (pretending to help) testing the cables for fuel level from vehicle fuel tank.
We pulled apart the vehicle and dissect each cables for potential integration with our hardware.
Dashboard of our car with meters taken out. A small sacrifice for future growth of KATSANA!
For more information about Katsana, contact our sales representatives +6013-773 3014 or +6013-773 3154 to arrange for a demonstration.