NF500 / eco drive

President of the AA, Edmund King will be leading an AA team competing in the 2008 MPG Marathon, behind the wheel of an eco:Drive equipped 1.3 multijet diesel Fiat 500.

The 2008 MPG Marathon will take entrants from Bristol to Macclesfield and back again, but the winner of this event will not be first past the post, rather the teams who record the highest overall miles per gallon, and the greatest increase in MPG over the manufacturers’ stated consumption figures.

To help him prepare, Edmund has completed the AA’s Eco-driver Training that provides specific on-road tuition to help improve fuel efficiency and driver safety.

Read more about the AAs motivation for entering the MPG Marathon on the AA website.

For those who know what this is and just want the software, the download is on the official Fiat website. Full ecoDrive press release follows…

Managing Director of Fiat Automobiles, Lorenzo Sistino, presented “ecoDrive” to the international press; it is an innovative system that allows drivers to gain better insight into how their driving style influences their consumption and emission of pollutants.

“ecoDrive” is a software application that can be installed on your computer and is available from today on www.fiat.com/ecodrive (there is also a video dedicated to the product on this site).

As you are driving your car, “ecoDrive” processes in detail all the information relating to the vehicle’s efficiency and your driving characteristics. Thanks to the versatile Blue&Me’s USB port, all the data is transmitted via a normal USB key and can, therefore, be “read” on a computer at a later date.

In fact, the user can carefully analyse consumption and emission on each journey they make (ecoIndex) and receive advise on how to drive in order to create less impact on the environment. In fact, thanks to a series of progressive tutorials, you can improve your score: just think that drivers who are more conscious of their “eco-responsible” driving can expect to improve their driving style by 15%, and that means: reduce CO2 emissions by 15% and see an annual saving in fuel of between 120 and 200 Euro. Furthermore, “ecoVille” has been created specifically for Fiat’s “ecoDrivers”, an on-line community where everyone can share interests and their commitment to an eco-responsible way of driving by accessing the site www.fiat.com/ecodrive where there is also a video dedicated to the “ecoDrive” system.

Fiat 500 and Grande Punto are the first Fiat Group vehicles to make use of “ecoDrive” and, as of today, will be available for downloading from the site and installed at no extra cost. In 2009, the system will be extended to the rest of the range equipped with Blue&Me. Lastly, thanks to a contribution from users, the “ecoDrive” application will be updated to make it even more useful.

“ecoDrive” is a Blue&Me evolution, the platform developed by the Fiat Group Automobiles in conjunction with Microsoft that has already earned a great deal of recognition and reached a quota of 500,000 pieces installed in the various Group’s models in about the last two years.

Consultancy and research company JATO have declared that among the top ten selling vehicle manufacturers in Europe, Fiat Automobiles recorded the lowest average CO2 emissions value for automobiles sold during 2007, setting an impressive benchmark of 137.3 g/km

The full rundown puts Fiat ahead of Peugeot at 141.9 g/km with sister company Citroen coming in at 142.2 g/km. Another French manufacturer, Renault come in fourth place with 146.4 g/km average, followed by Ford at 149.1 g/km. The chasing pack is made up my Vauxhall/Opel, Volkswagen, BMW, and in last palce Mercedes with average CO2 emissions of 188.4 g/km.

The results of this important analysis reward Fiat’s ongoing commitment to finding innovative solutions to reduce levels of polluting emissions and CO2

explained Lorenzo Sistino, managing director of Fiat Automobiles

Fiat’s aim is always to stay closer to people’s real needs and its commitment does not end here. Irrespective of what is decided by the powers-that-be in Europe, our aim is still to achieve the lowest average adjusted level of CO2 emissions for Fiat cars by 2012. Fiat intends to achieve this result by introducing an action plan on engines and transmissions, in addition to the use of the Eco Drive, an innovative application developed with Microsoft that is able – via the USB Port of the versatile Blue&Me system - to analyse motorists’ driving styles, helping them to optimise behaviour in terms of fuel consumption and hence emissions.

While Fiat are very publicly touting their eco-credentials of late, with innovations in the pipeline concerning hybrid drive systems and other combined fuel saving technologies, as recently shown in the Fiat 500 Aria concept, one huge aid in achieving these figures is Fiat’s product portfolio, which leans heavily towards smaller, and therefore almost by default, more frugal and lower emitting cars than many rivals.

Fiat are also working hard to be ready for future regulation ahead of time, for example the Fiat 500 and the Fiat Bravo have already seen the introduction of Euro 5 Ready power units (petrol and diesel) to the range. And by the end of 2009, the majority of engines in the entire Fiat range will be Euro 5 ready. Fiat is also the first manufacturer to develop the Multijet technology that drives all new-generation diesel cars and is a world leader in the field of methane-driven OEM cars (more than 50,000 were sold last year in Italy).

While investing in alternative fuel technology, Fiat is also embarking on a mission to downsize its diesel and petrol engine versions, as demonstrated by the new 1.4 T-Jet and 1.6 Multijet families. The adoption of a new-generation turbocharger, combined with a smaller capacity engine, enables Fiat to achieve performance levels on a par with, or even in excess of higher-capacity power units, but with lower fuel consumption and emissions.