We met with the I-DriveGreen team this weekend and took away some great ideas for anyone driving anything, regardless of its technology.
The gist is that everyone wants to be green but feel they need to make sacrifices in order to do so. Not necessarily, says I-DriveGreen Founder Jean Paul Libert who says anyone can drive greener even with a “big American V8″. And this is what pricked our attention. I-DriveGreen takes action right now with what we have instead of talking theories.
The I-DriveGreen Academy. We went to the I-DriveGreen academy where Jean Paul and his team let us drive some amazing cars, a Maserati GT, a Ferrari 430 Scuderria, a Lamborghini Gallardo, and one of Callaway’s Corvette C6. The idea was that we could drive our daily cars the same way.
Using a little box that records accelerations, braking, etc, it lets you see how well you did. The interface was easy to use and insightful. Our first test drive in a Chevy Impala was recorded and was compared to our second run, after the training . We made a 10% gain in fuel efficiency, and one person achieved 24%. Asked about what was the biggest problem the team sees is that people heavily step on the gas pedal followed by hard braking. That is the biggest fuel consumption factor.
We were impressed by the philosophy of “enough talking, start doing with what you have right now”. The take away from I-DriveGreen is that you can squeeze more efficiency out of anything you drive, whether a gas car, a hybrid or a pure electric. It will be interesting to see how well I-DriveGreen does since what it boils to is driver education.