Tire pressure: an underestimated expense

Tire pressure is one of those topics everyone knows about, but almost nobody manages consistently. Especially not in a larger fleet. It is important for safety, tire wear, and driving comfort, but also for something that carries even more weight in 2026: fuel and energy costs. How much can a fleet manager save by maintaining the correct tire pressure across all vehicles? When do the savings outweigh the costs of monitoring it? How do Echoes’ solutions ensure that seemingly negligible deviations are automatically detected and followed up on, making a real difference in challenging times?

In this blog, we use several concrete examples from different fleets to show how many euros are almost literally disappearing into thin air when tire pressure is not properly monitored, why traditional fleet management understandably often overlooks this seemingly minor detail, and how tire pressure as real-time data within the Echoes platform can lead to significant cost reductions.

Tire pressure? One percent more or less doesn’t really make that much of a difference, does it? Too low tire pressure means higher rolling resistance. And higher rolling resistance means higher fuel consumption. For a single passenger car, van, or plug-in hybrid, that difference per trip may seem small. But across a fleet, it quickly adds up. Especially when dozens or hundreds of vehicles are on the road every day.

And that is exactly where the challenge lies for the fleet manager. In theory, tire pressure is simple: check it regularly and inflate when needed, and fuel costs drop significantly. In practice, it’s a different story for a fleet. Vehicles are not all in at the same time. Drivers have packed schedules. A monthly check is quickly postponed or considered unimportant. And calling or emailing every driver with the question “could you please check your tire pressure?” is labor-intensive, error-prone, and hardly scalable.

For a small fleet, this might still be manageable. For 50, 100, or many more vehicles, it quickly becomes an impossible task. Not because the manager doesn’t see the importance, but because the required time doesn’t outweigh the visible return.

Calculation example 1: mixed fleet with 120 vehicles
Assume: a company has 120 vehicles in this composition:
60 diesel vans
40 petrol cars
20 electric vehicles

We use the following figures:
30% of vehicles regularly drive with too low tire pressure
too low tire pressure causes 2% extra consumption
diesel: 35,000 km per year, 6,5 l/100 km
petrol: 25,000 km per year, 7,0 l/100 km
electric: 30,000 km per year, 18 kWh/100 km
diesel price: € 2,16/l
petrol price: € 2,30/l
charging costs: € 0,40/kWh

Savings per vehicle with correct tire pressure:
diesel van: approximately € 98 per year
petrol car: approximately € 80 per year
electric vehicle: approximately € 43 per year

When 30% of the fleet is structurally corrected, the annual savings amount to approximately:
18 diesel vans x € 98 = € 1.764
12 petrol cars x € 80 = € 960
6 electric vehicles x € 43 = € 258
Total savings: approximately € 2.982 per year

That is almost € 3.000 on one relatively small data point: tire pressure.

Calculation example 2: large service fleet with 300 diesel vans
For service organisations, installation companies, maintenance companies and field service organisations, the effect is often higher. Vans drive many kilometers, are heavily loaded and have relatively high consumption.

Assume:
300 diesel vans
40,000 kilometers per year
average consumption: 7,5 l/100 km
diesel price: € 2,16/l
30% regularly drives with too low tire pressure
extra consumption: 2%

Costs per vehicle:
annual diesel consumption: 3,000 liters
annual fuel costs: € 6.480
2% extra consumption: approximately € 130 per vehicle per year
If 90 vehicles are corrected, this results in:

90 x € 130 = approximately € 11.700 per year

And again: this is only fuel. In practice, the business case can become stronger when tire wear, unplanned workshop visits and downtime are also included.

Calculation example 3: electric fleet with 200 EVs
In electric vehicles, tire pressure is sometimes less quickly linked to costs. After all, no fuel is being refuelled. But for EVs as well: more rolling resistance means higher energy consumption and less range.

Assume:
200 electric cars
32,000 kilometers per year
average consumption: 19 kWh/100 km
average charging cost: € 0,40/kWh
30% regularly drives with too low tire pressure
extra energy consumption: 2%
Costs per vehicle:

annual energy consumption: 6.080 kWh
annual charging costs: € 2.432
2% extra consumption: approximately € 49 per vehicle per year

If 60 vehicles are corrected:
60 x € 49 = approximately € 2.940 per year

Tire pressure and range

The financial effect per EV is lower than with a diesel van, but EVs introduce another factor: range. Correct tire pressure helps make range more predictable. This is important for planning, charging strategy and drivers who use their vehicle intensively.

Calculation example 4: plug-in hybrid fleet with 80 vehicles
Plug-in hybrids are interesting because they combine two cost streams: fuel and electricity. When tire pressure is not correct, consumption increases on both sides.
Assume:
80 plug-in hybrids
28,000 kilometers per year
60% electric driving
40% petrol driving
electric consumption: 20 kWh/100 km
petrol consumption: 5,5 l/100 km
electricity price: € 0,40/kWh
petrol price: € 2,30/l
30% regularly drives with too low tire pressure
extra consumption: 2%

Costs per vehicle:
electric: 16,800 km x 20 kWh/100 km = 3,360 kWh = € 1.344
petrol: 11,200 km x 5,5 l/100 km = 616 liters = € 1.417
total energy costs: approximately € 2.761
2% extra consumption: approximately € 55 per vehicle per year

If 24 vehicles are corrected: 24 x € 55 = approximately €1.320 per year

Here too: the amount may seem modest, but it is about one control point. One value. One forgotten detail.

The problem is not just tire pressure. The problem is primarily the lack of insight. For fleet managers, the frustration is not in inflating tires. It is in organizing it:

• Which vehicle has deviating values?
• Which driver needs to take action?
• Which vehicles are already scheduled for maintenance soon anyway?
• Where is the deviation urgent and where can it wait?
• And how do you avoid being dependent on manual checks, loose Excel lists, or feedback from drivers?

Without real-time insight, tire pressure remains a task that everyone probably thinks is important, but in practice easily falls through the cracks.

Real-time vehicle data turns a small detail into something manageable and valuable. With solutions from Echoes the fleet manager gains real-time insight into vehicle data directly from the car itself. Tire pressure no longer needs to be requested manually or checked on a sample basis. Thanks to OEM connectivity, the values are centrally collected in a single platform. That changes the way you manage. Instead of periodically checking everything, you see which vehicles require attention. Instead of discovering afterwards that a vehicle has been running inefficiently for months, you can intervene earlier. And instead of creating extra manual work, you can work with alerts, thresholds and realistic predictions.

Tire pressure is not a major strategic topic. It is a small data point. But that is exactly what makes it interesting. Because if a single data point can already unlock thousands of euros per year, what happens when more vehicle data is used structurally? Think of fuel and energy consumption, charging behavior, mileage, fault codes, maintenance signals, battery status, driving behavior and downtime. Each of these are signals that exist in the vehicle, but without a connection to a central platform they often remain unused. Modern fleet management is therefore not only about managing vehicles. It is about gaining control over the data behind those vehicles.