Samsara launches Fuel Command Center to slash fleet costs
Key Highlights
- Centralizes fuel spend data, fraud detection, and driver behavior insights into a single dashboard for easier management.
- Offers route planning features that incorporate preferred fuel stops, reducing fuel costs by an average of 4%.
- Connects fuel card transactions to vehicle location, preventing misuse and saving fleets up to $15,000 monthly.
Samsara recently launched its Fuel Command Center—a centralized platform that brings all its fuel management capabilities into a single pane of glass.
The system combines a consolidated view of total and recoverable fuel spend with intelligent fuel-stop recommendations in Commercial Navigation and Coast fuel card controls, giving operations and finance teams one place to identify waste, guide drivers to lower-cost fuel, and prevent card misuse, the company reported.
“We used to worry about fraud all the time. Cards went missing, PINs were shared, and we had no way to verify transactions,” Tim Weisser, Milestone Home Services fleet operations manager, said in a news release. “Now with Coast and Samsara, the system takes care of it.
“If the truck’s not there, the card doesn’t work. Simple.”
Commercial fleets have contended with sustained fuel misuse and price volatility throughout 2026, as diesel prices have moved by more than $0.20 per gallon in a single week seven times since late February, according to data from the Samsara Fuel Spend Index. The latest swing erased three consecutive months of declines in four weeks, pushing diesel to $5.23 per gallon by the end of July—16% above where the month began—while gasoline climbed from $3.93 to $4.25. This unpredictability heightens the need for cost controls and presents a significant opportunity. Internal data shows that U.S. customers had roughly $2 billion in potential fuel-spend savings in the first six months of the year. The Fuel Command Center gives operators the tools to capture those savings as conditions change, Samsara said.
“Fuel is one of the biggest costs a fleet carries—30% to 40% of total marginal operating costs,” said Ryan Yu, VP of product at Samsara. “Prices have swung hard the past several months, and when they rise, fuel fraud rises with them. Customers told us pump-price visibility isn’t enough. They need fraud, driver behavior, and vendor choices in one view, so they can cut costs before they add up. That’s why we built Fuel Command Center: to give operators and finance leaders a way to turn their operations data into action and find immediate savings.”
The Fuel Command Center centralizes the data and controls fleets use to manage fuel across three core areas:
See total fuel spend in one place
Fuel Command Center gives operations and finance teams a consolidated view of total and recoverable fuel spend. It identifies where money is being lost across idling, fueling location, driver efficiency, fraud, and suspicious fuel drops, then recommends the highest-impact actions. Managers can track quarterly trends and act from the same dashboard—for example, by turning on in-cab idling alerts or adding preferred fuel vendors.
Route drivers to the right fuel stop
Commercial Navigation extends the centralized fuel strategy to the road by building preferred fuel stops into a route before a driver leaves the yard, so drivers do not have to toggle between telematics and third-party fuel apps. It accounts for corporate negotiated rates, responds when fuel runs low mid-route, and reroutes to the nearest preferred station. In a 90-day analysis of more than 2,000 Samsara customers, organizations cut a median of 4% in fuel spend by fueling at preferred vendors.
Stop card misuse before the transaction
Fuel card misuse rises with fuel prices: a Samsara analysis found that detected fraud incidents increase roughly 9% for every $0.10 increase in the price of diesel. Through the Samsara Coast integration, Fuel Command Center connects card authorization to vehicle location, allowing fleets to manage policies in one place and block transactions when the assigned vehicle is not present.
“After implementing Coast through Samsara, we saw our fuel expenses drop by nearly $15,000 a month,” Trades Holding CFO Kyle Stewart said.