An interesting article about crowdsourcing your car hit the wires this week. Nissan’s new Leaf electric car (which began shipping recently) includes a wireless check-in feature that you can use to compete with other Leaf owners for energy efficiency awards.
It’s a pretty interesting idea: using the Carwings system (an OnStar-like system that originated in Japan) the Leaf wirelessly transmits your energy usage statistics to their servers. The system then compares your usage to other Leaf owners in your region and awards trophies to the winners, which then display in the Leaf’s dashboard control center.
In addition, the system uses data from drivers of other Carwings users (not just Leaf drivers) to aggregate and display near real-time traffic predictions, further enabling the Leaf driver to make intelligent decisions about energy economy.
This friendly competition seems an excellent way to encourage Leaf drivers to maximize their energy efficiency, but I wonder if it’s a good idea for the rest of us. Let me explain: The concept of “hypermiling” (and it amuses me more than it should to include a hyperlink here) started a couple of years ago when drivers—particularly drivers of hybrid cars—began to wonder just how many miles-per-gallon they could actually get from their vehicle. Unfortunately, some of the techniques they began to use were illegal and/or dangerous: things like tailgating to “draft” behind large trucks, turning the car on and off to coast in neutral, coasting through stop signs, and driving even more slowly in freeway slow lanes.
If we have hypermilers (including Leaf drivers) increasingly trying to use some of these techniques to optimize their miles, it may in fact cause those of us who aren’t hypermiling to burn more energy trying to avoid them or get around them. The net effect is that if a hypermiler saves one ounce of fuel, but causes other people to burn more than one ounce of fuel, it’s a net loss for the energy system, not a net gain. (I do have to note that there are lots of ethical hypermilers out there that utilize *safe* and *legal* methods to squeeze those extra miles out of their cars, and I highly commend them.)
I’ve always been a proponent of giving people lots of information so they can make informed decisions. The problem with the Leaf contest, in my humble opinion, is that without some education as to safe and legal ways to drive efficiently (and not inconvenience or endanger other drivers) is going to cause problems for other drivers. Leaf drivers who’ve never heard of hypermiling or know what aspects of it are safe and legal may be encouraged by the competition to rediscover driving techniques that have already been tried by earlier hypermilers and discarded for safety reasons. People seem to be very good at rediscovering inventive wrong things to do, and making them aware of safe ways to achieve energy efficiency should be a mandatory prerequisite to owning such a car. Especially a car that encourages competition.
And if they really wanted this to be a fair and accurate competition as to who is using energy most efficiently, they should include mileage statistics from bicyclists and people working from home.
It’s a pretty interesting idea: using the Carwings system (an OnStar-like system that originated in Japan) the Leaf wirelessly transmits your energy usage statistics to their servers. The system then compares your usage to other Leaf owners in your region and awards trophies to the winners, which then display in the Leaf’s dashboard control center.
In addition, the system uses data from drivers of other Carwings users (not just Leaf drivers) to aggregate and display near real-time traffic predictions, further enabling the Leaf driver to make intelligent decisions about energy economy.
This friendly competition seems an excellent way to encourage Leaf drivers to maximize their energy efficiency, but I wonder if it’s a good idea for the rest of us. Let me explain: The concept of “hypermiling” (and it amuses me more than it should to include a hyperlink here) started a couple of years ago when drivers—particularly drivers of hybrid cars—began to wonder just how many miles-per-gallon they could actually get from their vehicle. Unfortunately, some of the techniques they began to use were illegal and/or dangerous: things like tailgating to “draft” behind large trucks, turning the car on and off to coast in neutral, coasting through stop signs, and driving even more slowly in freeway slow lanes.
If we have hypermilers (including Leaf drivers) increasingly trying to use some of these techniques to optimize their miles, it may in fact cause those of us who aren’t hypermiling to burn more energy trying to avoid them or get around them. The net effect is that if a hypermiler saves one ounce of fuel, but causes other people to burn more than one ounce of fuel, it’s a net loss for the energy system, not a net gain. (I do have to note that there are lots of ethical hypermilers out there that utilize *safe* and *legal* methods to squeeze those extra miles out of their cars, and I highly commend them.)
I’ve always been a proponent of giving people lots of information so they can make informed decisions. The problem with the Leaf contest, in my humble opinion, is that without some education as to safe and legal ways to drive efficiently (and not inconvenience or endanger other drivers) is going to cause problems for other drivers. Leaf drivers who’ve never heard of hypermiling or know what aspects of it are safe and legal may be encouraged by the competition to rediscover driving techniques that have already been tried by earlier hypermilers and discarded for safety reasons. People seem to be very good at rediscovering inventive wrong things to do, and making them aware of safe ways to achieve energy efficiency should be a mandatory prerequisite to owning such a car. Especially a car that encourages competition.
And if they really wanted this to be a fair and accurate competition as to who is using energy most efficiently, they should include mileage statistics from bicyclists and people working from home.
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