EcoNav Sat Nav Could Save You Fuel
It’s always baffled me why so many, many products are pushed with the claim of being “green.” I’ll be honest, I don’t care about the environment, I have faith in the technological prowess of man, and thoroughly believe that no effort I go to in reducing my own “carboon footprint” will really count for anything.
What many “green” products do, however, is save you money. The EcoNav claims that it can cut your fuel emissions by up to 30% and will pay for itself in six months with savings on petrol.
Now, whilst I don’t completely doubt these claims, my morning commute to work doesn’t really have a lot of room for variation. Every direction will result in a good long wait in traffic, which is not something the EcoNav could help with.
What the EcoNav does seem to do, however, is contain some of the Eco notification systems you might find in a modern car. These include letting you know the optimum gear for driving in, and whether or not you are using the acellerator pedal correctly, how fast you should be driving and more. These things are widely accepted factors in the consumption of fuel to the extent that over-acceleration dampening pedals are being researched and many cars will already tell you when to shift up or down but obviously don’t tend to be aware of speed limits or optimum driving routes.
However, if you’ve not got the cash spare for a brand new car the EcoNav offers a cost effective alternative that doesn’t cost much more than a comparable TomTom at £159 for the 3.5″ and £199 for the 4.3″ regional map versions. Expect to pay £30 more on top of these prices for European maps, though. The EcoNav, being a SatNav, can take advantage of its positional and situational awareness to direct you down the best roads, avoiding traffic- more or less like any other GPS but with the added benefit of gear shift, optimum speed and acceleration notifications.
Of course, if you don’t like a woman’s voice telling you where to drive, you’re probably going to despise one that tells you how to drive!