A New Sat Nav That Saves Fuel

Friday, 28. August 2009

This is becoming a real technology week, we’re now onto Sat Navs that save you fuel! Yep, I kid you not. Whilst the sat nav on my last car, a BMW 7 Series, insisted on taking me round in a complete circle in the middle of London for a good ¾ hour last Christmas and after averting a traffic jam on the M25, on many occasions, insisted on re-routing me straight back into the midst of the logjam, they think they have the technology to calculate the route that saves most fuel! Bosch are currently working on this system, along with lots of other safety equipment. They say that their system will store information collected from the engine management system for a particular route then use it for future calculations along with information collected on the course of the road and any events that may happen along the way, creating a profile taking into accounts road classes, uphill gradients and intersections. It collects information about current traffic conditions and delay expectations to calculate the most fuel efficient route. In the meantime, whilst they are developing this amazing piece of equipment I’ll be driving round in circles, somewhere in the middle of London but this time to the instructions of Mercedes COMMAND sat nav system! Great! By Graham Hill