Revenir au sommaire Drive greener and cheaper?
An equation solved by eco-driving
Both environmentally friendly and economical, eco-driving is a practice that reduces fuel consumption.
Currently a major political concern, it is a key solution for manufacturers to comply with increasingly strict European regulations concerning vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions. Non-compliance with these regulations, which leads to heavy fines for manufacturers, can be smoothed out thanks to coaching in eco-driving.
But beyond standards’ requirements, reducing CO2 emissions constitutes a real challenge for society: increasingly, drivers want to be able to individually contribute to this shared objective.
Changing gears at low engine speed, maintaining a stable speed, anticipating traffic, properly maintaining your vehicle, reducing air conditioning or even switching off the engine when stationary are all virtuous eco-driving practices that help to keep fuel consumption to a minimum and emit less pollution. No private car is exempt: everyone can take action at their own level.
« One of the success factors for reducing CO2 will be a change in drivers’ driving style »
Sébastien Hervieu,
ALTEN Innovation Leader.
Data fusion is a game changer
These practices, far from being intuitive given the lack of knowledge and training, require best practices and the development of coaching services to support motorists in driving in a more eco-sensitive way.
To this end, connected energy-efficient driving apps, harnessing the fusion of data, will help make these behaviours second nature.
Eco-driving measurements consist in analysing the CAN Bus, the digital car network through which most vehicles’ computers communicate with each other, in order to generate consumption data instantly. The large amount of information gathered, such as the position of the steering wheel, activation of the cruise control, even the precise speed of each wheel, is estimated in real time and then consolidated for an analysis that distinguishes between good and bad behaviour.
Happy Drive: a Yuka-style eco-driving app
Despite growing ecological awareness, eco-driving has yet to become widespread.
To remedy this, ALTEN Labs want to do more to support motorists in becoming eco-drivers with the “Happy Drive” connected eco-assistant research project that can influence drivers’ habits.
Equipped with five different data sources (vehicle data, smartphone data, declarative data, geolocation and driving history), this connected application would be able to provide innovative advice inspired by hypermiling that befits the user’s profile.
A whole set of indicators, such as sound announcements, visual signals on the dashboard and the light in the passenger compartment, is designed to educate drivers to adopt safer, more economical, and more environmentally friendly driving.
Eco-driving applications are also incorporating an increasing number of gamification features to encourage drivers to act in a way that is more respectful of the environment: they are thus becoming more efficient and complex, but also easier and more pleasant to use. In other words, they are certainly the key to the sustainable democratisation of eco-driving.
