Fiat Launches eco:Drive In Paris

Just as a lot of us were taught the finer points of apexing around bending roads, late lifting and catching a slide, it is soon gonna be as valuable a personal asset to be able to drive eco-friendlier. Now you may be thinking “oh hell, what’s the world coming to?” but there are clear advantages to this. News in relation to this intro is that Fiat has launched eco:Drive, an information system created to achieve just this.

Essentially this is software downloaded off the Internet from Fiat’s website, installed into your Fiat, a 500 or Grande Punto for now, via that USB and Blue&Me infotainment system. The software then records your driving habits on an ongoing basis, and informs you what you are doing. It then works out based on this how you can change your dirty old driving habits into eco-friendly piloting ways. Information about your fuel consumption numbers, your CO2 production cycles, and so on is produced. This info can be downloaded via USB into your computer, with recommendations on how you can improve things next time.

Eco:Drive goes further by creating a whole village called ecoVille, which, while it sounds like a grass-eating cult in some remote village, is really a network of other eco:Drive-connected Fiat drivers. The purpose here is for all of you green-headed kindred spirits to share driving tips and other info, and also to see how you are doing in the save-the-planet-o-metre.