Follow up to These Apps Can Help You Find the Cheapest Gas See also The Drive A tool originally made to track beer prices unites public data, crowdsourced photos, and robocalls to find the cheapest gas near you. “…Appropriately called “The Gas Index,” the project started as a tool to track the price of a pint of beer, of all things, in Ireland. (It was called the “Guinndex.”) As it turns out, how much beer costs, like so many things, is to some degree tied to how much oil costs. Naturally, engineers Matt Cortland and Jon Fleming expanded their efforts to cover gas in the U.S., and what they’ve built is arguably the most sophisticated tool of its kind. The Gas Index allows you to add your vehicles and location to an account, so that when it serves up the cheapest gas, it’s automatically factoring in how far you’ll have to drive to get it, how thirsty your car is, and what octane it requires. According to its calculator, it’s $6.14 cheaper for me to drive 25 minutes to a Sheetz than to fill up at the station around the corner from where I live. It also puts the money that wartime is costing you and I into real terms, comparing the average price of a tank before February 28 to today, and rattling off how much that is in milk, toilet paper, Dunkin iced coffees, Bud Light cans, or whatever proxy for economic health you prefer…”