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Free GPSClever gizmos can point the way to gas savings.
An unexpected benefit of high energy prices? That GPS for your car could be free. Consider the case of my Dad, a daily car commuter (with a TerraPass of course — thanks, Pops!). He installed the Garmin Nuvi 760 for Father’s Day (retail $385) and immediately found the “shortest route” feature. The result? Two miles shaved off his commute. Turns out the earlier exit, although a bit slower, is actually a shorter way to go. The savings? Well, at his..ahem..poor mileage of 20 mpg, and 250 working days, and gas at $4.50, this little number saves him $225, giving a two year payback and leaving him with a cool new toy. The savings go up even more if he can avoid traffic jams, and use it for weekend travel as well. Guess mom is pretty smart after all, eh? Follow her lead, try and shorten that commute by grabbing a GPS. Comments
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I'm sorry but there is a cost associated with producing and importing yet another piece of chinese plastic! Garmin like many other manufacturing companies have cut costs and increased profit with complete disregard for the environment. A huge proportion of Chinese manufacturing is environmentally ignorant to a degree which is shocking. Recomending we support this to save money is ignorance at the highest level.. certainly not what I'd expect to see on here. Disappointing. Your father could have done this test on google maps without buying any more equipment.
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Dear Tom,
You forgot to mention the gas savings from not getting lost in unfamiliar territory.
I'm just guessing, but I'll bet a buck that one can save 10 percent on a vacation trip to a new destination by not getting lost even once.
Before getting a Magellan, my wife and I were at least bronze medalists in k-turns and u-turns.
The net vacation lasts longer too. The formula: gross vacation minus time reading maps minus time being lost minus time arguing minus time asking for directions in gas stations equals net vacation.
Regards,
Wendell
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I have two different routes to my parents home - one is 3 miles longer, but involves average speeds of 50 mph, and only a few stops. The shorter route has multiple stoplights and stop signs, and average speeds around 30.
Does it really make a difference for me to go the shorter route with all that
stop and go driving (which usually kills the mpg?)
I'd love to know!
Thanks...
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My clever gizmo suggestion is a bicycle. It saves much more carbon emissions than the GPS/car combo cited above. It also reduces local air pollution, helps me get my daily cardio fitness exercise, and leaves me more fired up about my work activities when I arrive.
Bikes have been around for a long time too, over 100 years now. They remain the most efficient human powered form of transportation (except for maybe ice skates). More adults need to get reacquainted with the wonders of two wheeled self-transportation.
The thing about GPS's is they are a short term gadget investment. the base maps are always becoming outdated, and updating them is a hassle when it is possible to do so at all. You end up buying one every few years. That said, they can be handy as mentioned above, to reduce stress when on vacation or in unknown areas. My wife enjoys using her GPS to stay on schedule because it gives her an ETA when she is en route somewhere.
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I'd like to see a GPS that calculates your Route only using right hand turns. As UPS and Fedex do for their delivery routes. Less Left-hand turns reduces idling time at lights and waiting for traffic. It not only helps your efficiency but helps keep traffic flowing smoothly.
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To echo Rachel's comment, his new route may be shorter, but if it takes longer than the old route, then it must be at lower speeds and/or involve stop-and-go. I'm pretty sure this would effectively kill any savings generated by the route being "shorter."
In addition - while I am a longtime in-car GPS user and big proponent of them for convenience, avoiding traffic, and saving fuel by minimizing time lost - if all you want to do is find the shortest route to a given destination, why not just go to Google maps, Mapquest, Yahoo! Maps, etc??? It's a bit ludicrous to suggest that people should buy a GPS unit to find the shortest route between two points.
Again, I'm a GPS proponent overall, but if your only need is find the shortest route between two points - why not do that for FREE online, and spend the few hundred bucks you just saved by avoiding an unnecessary electronics purchase on carbon offsets, installing CFL or LED lights, tuning up your car, etc?
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My girlfriend just bought a Garvin Nuvi and we decided to try it out for our trip up north last wekend. We were using the turn-by-turn voice directions and it did quite well until we were about 3 or 4 miles from our destination.
At that point it took us off into the woods on dirt two-tracks that were so deeply rutted that our car was bottoming out. Then we lost the satellite connection and were on unmarked roads. Out came my trusty map book which shows those dirt two-tracks as well as main roads. Turns out we were being taken in a circuitous route around our destination.
But I must give the device credit, as we got off the two-track and back on "regular" dirt roads it came back online and after recalculating gave us appropriate directions to our destination. Since we knew by that point the rest of the trip, we turned it off. We were about a half hour late arriving.
I will give it another opportunity to prove itself. There are redeeming qualities and I can see where it can be quite useful, especially when routes and streets are poorly marked or there are so many signs that could be easy to miss your turn.
If you do miss your turn it will let you know and recalculate giving new directions to quickly get you back on route. There have been times in the past when I have been off-route for miles before I realized I had missed my turn. This system won't let that happen as long as you have a connection with the satellite.
Don't rely on it 100% though. If you lose your satellite connection you may find yourself lost because you have no idea where you are. Always keep maps available and be aware of where you are at all times so you can quickly locate yourself on a map should the connection fail.
Happy motoring!
Mike
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@Mike, Nick: yes you can do this for free online. That wasn't really my point -- My point was that for many of us with GPS units, this is a neat way to save a little money and carbon emissions. The US is spending $4B on these things, lets see if they can help us fight climate change?
@David: Pops is a pretty tough guy, but a 50 mile daily bike commute for a 65 year old is a bit much.
@Rachel: You could measure this very carefully if your commute is regular by switching between tanks. Alternatively, the ScanGauge II we sell measures trip fuel consumption and trip MPG (they are so popular we can barely keep them in stock).
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I have to say they are handy when you have no idea where you are. My car came with a GPS. I have used it to avoid traffic, interstates, toll roads etc. I've used it to find my way around closed roads. I use it to find gas farther away from an interstate exit, where it's cheaper and food other than fast food. Someday maybe we will be able to find Bio-diesel or electric pug in stations and so on with this handy device. By the way my car is 3yrs old and I haven't change the disk yet. I only wish I could take mine from car to car. I used to google or map quest and the short or long way was more often than not hard to follow. Required putting on glasses to read it and sometimes pulling over just to figure out where you are.
I love people that think everyone lives in an area where a bicycle can be A as in any form of transportation. Bicycling for me is a quite ride along the back country roads I live on. Taking in the incredible scenery on my way to nowhere. I live many miles from the nearest store of any kind and work even further, it would take me hours with an s to get there. Then where shall I put the food I bought along with the other stuff I had to pick up while I was out? I would not trade my car for your bike just to live in or near a town or city. I do my part. I go only when I have to. I make as many stops on that trip as I can and I drive a car big enough to haul what I have to, and I get 28 mpg out on my back roads. But may be one day for all you city dwellers you'll have a GPS that runs solar and works on bikes ( and made in the good ole' USA).
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Tom, why did you not respond to Mike (first comment). He makes a strong point. Just because a Garmin will save you some gas (maybe) it doesn't mean it's cradle-to-grave carbon cycle is worth it. Terrapass is supposed to be about the environment, not saving money (after all, not buying a Terrapass saves money...)
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@Carl/@Mike: Still working on documenting this, but the carbon footprint of the GPS is much lower than the carbon savings -- In the example above, Dad shaved a full 1000 lbs of carbon emissions in the first year.
I don't have the embodied emissions figures for a GPS, but doing a little math on the recent climate group report, I come up with 146 lbs of embodied CO2 for a laptop. I'm pretty sure this strategy has good GHG payback, but maybe someone else has better numbers?
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What would be really sweet is an "errands mode" for GPS. You punch in all your destinations and then let it calculate the shortest loop using the "traveling salesman" algorithm and off you go.
Now if you add posted speed limits and intersection type (simple stop light, left turn arrow only, stop sign, unregulated, etc) you could calculate expected fuel efficiency for the possible routes and find one with highest economy.
Chances are, it will not be the shortest or fastest route. The sweet spot for most cars is around 35 to 45 MPH. If you go much faster than this, fuel economy drops very quickly (most energy goes to pushing the air out of the way). Likewise, if you go much slower than this fuel economy goes down as most of the energy is used just to keep the engine running.
If Garmin chooses to capitalize on this, I'll buy their stock in a heartbeat.
And if they could also add designated bike lanes to GPS, bikers would love it!
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@ Zachry, Wow very nice ideas, could we add a travel smart mode too! You could put in all your site seeing interest, food, hotels, maybe even time frame, for a trip and it would plot a course. Like AAA will do for members ( back to the map type thing again.) My GPS you have to go to point A then put in your next stop and so on. One more thing could we please make it in the USA. Saves on shipping and puts people to work here. Thats got to be better for all of us. Maybe we should send all this to Garmin!
@Tom, How much CE could be saved not shipping across the world, wouldn't it be better to manufacture here. All things considered with so many green options for manufacturing now. Would you pay alittle more for a "MADE IN THE USA".
I do and I would.
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Despite what Nick and Rachel foresee, savings are probably even greater than you state; I found, when a reprogrammed my GPS to the shortest rather than the quickest route, that the short routes were generally also the lower speed routes, resulting in driving at a more fuel effiicent speed.
A recent intercity trip on the 110km/hr twin highway burned a 50 litre tank of fuel, while the return trip, while about 50km longer, burned burned less than 3/4 of the 50 litre tank.
K Henderson
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Lots of input regarding shorter routes at slower speeds, vs. slightly longer with 55 mph limits....
(and, spending $159 to buy a gizmo to figure this out isn't in my budget right now... I need that for gas!)
I still think that I'll get higher mpg on the longer route...
The majority of the trip is 45 - 60 mph limits - with three stoplights, and five stop signs. The shorter route has at least 6 miles of 35 mph roads, with fourteen stoplights, and three crosswalks (in NYS you have to stop if someone is trying to cross..)
I don't speed, I coast to stops, and drive smoothly, but unless I get lucky and hit all green lights, I think I'll be using more fuel!
For the bike advocates - I'd love to use one, but I work part-time at 10 different locations (exercise instructor), often with
classes 30 minutes apart, so I don't have the luxury of using a bike. I DO own a motorcycle, and when Mother Nature isn't blessing us with rain showers, and I can safely carry the items I need, I use that. (dressed appropriately of course.)
Locally, we're seeing more SMART cars, along with scooters, Vespas, and something called the "Wildfire"
http://wildfirevehicles.com/index.html
Legal in NYS (although I think my insurance guy might wince)
You have to register them as a motorcycle, but the wheelbase
configuration makes me wonder about the stability....
anyway, I digress... looking forward to the next set of comments!
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GPS is also useful for hypermiling. I used it to calculate the shortest route to home from a friends home one night. The route was unfamiliar to me and the GPS allowed me to start my glides at a good point as I could not see the stop signs and intersections early enough.
Prius + hypermiling + Scanguage II + GPS = 71 MPG for 52 mile trip on unfamiliar route!
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