How to read and photograph your odometer

Where a Tesla shows total and trip distance

Tesla’s own owner’s manual names three places for the odometer: Controls, Software; the Trips card on the touchscreen; and the mobile app, scrolled to the bottom of the main screen. The Trips screens also show distance, duration and energy use for the current drive and for added trips.

Trip meters exist for single journeys and can be reset for the next one. The odometer total keeps counting beside them. For insurance only the total matters, plus your FSD kilometres if you track them with the FSD share calculator.

How to photograph your odometer

1. Park the car and open the odometer screen before you take the photo.
2. Photograph the full number, every digit, with the screen readable.
3. Take the photo on the day the reading counts, for example the day a policy starts.
4. Keep both photos when a bill needs two readings, one at the start and one at the end.

A photo beats a copied number because a typo shows. Digits you cannot read help nobody, so retake a photo that comes out blurred. Name the file with the date and the plate, so you find it back in a year.

The Dutch NAP register: logisch or onlogisch

Since 1 January 2014 the RDW registers odometer readings of passenger cars and light vans, the RDW writes in its explanation of the vehicle report. Older readings come from the Stichting Nationale Autopas, the NAP. Every series gets a judgement: logisch when each reading tops the one before, onlogisch when a reading sits below the previous one, and no judgement when the file is too thin.

An onlogisch reading means rollback or typo, not proof of fraud. Ask for the RDW vehicle report before you buy a used car; it lists every reading with its date. Belgium runs its own Car-Pass, and the RDW says it takes Belgian readings over since January 2025.

Why your insurer asks for a reading

The reading checks the mileage you declared. The Consumentenbond notes the kilometre reading is always recorded at a claim, and advises checking the stand each year against the purchase invoice and the APK report. A gap between declared and driven kilometres surfaces there. How the declared number works is in Pay-per-km car insurance in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Pay-per-km policies live on readings. Belfius Direct asks a fresh reading at the end of each insurance year and recalculates the premium from it. Band policies ask at quote time and again when something changes.

A reading must never include a location. Cushly asks for two counters only: total kilometres and kilometres on FSD (Supervised).

What to do if a reading looks wrong

Suspect a typo first, yours or the garage’s. The RDW lets wrong readings be corrected, with proof such as an invoice or service history for older entries. A correction now beats a dispute later.

Buying used with an onlogisch past, walk away or agree a price that carries the doubt. The register cannot tell you which reading is true, only that the series breaks.