Is Fiat's "Eco pack" greenwashing or the right direction for the car industry to go?
Later this year in the UK buyers of Fiat's Bravo can pay just £300 ($595 US dollars) for the optional "Eco" pack. What's in the "Eco" Pack? The package includes low rolling resistance tires, longer gear ratios and different setting for the car's computer. All that eco-pack-goodness adds up to an improvement of 5 MPG which brings the turbo diesel Bravo to 62 MPG.
Fiat's "Eco" Pack is probably the least amount I have seen a car company do to make a car more fuel efficient and put a label of on it. The package does nothing special like make the car Euro5 compliant but at least they don't stick a logo on the car saying it's green now. I guess it's a good thing they are offering green upgrades but why not make the "Eco" pack standard?
Hm. Am I being too hard on Fiat or is this a great idea other car companies should replicate?
[Source: Autocar]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Matt Pipes 5:49PM (2/05/2008)
Good question, I think if it was something like an SUV that struggled to get 20mpg it was be downright cycnical to market an "eco pack" that boosted it to struggling to get 25mpg, but for a car that gets in excess of 55mpg boosting it to 62mpg is putting it in hybrid company, without the associated environmental hazards of dealing with the lithium batteries down the road. One question though, is the milaege quoted in US MPG or British MPG, (A british gallon is different)
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Woodenbee 4:37PM (2/05/2008)
Thats hilarious, compared to the US market that car is off the scale, it doesn't exist here, in terms of economy, style and practicality and yet in Europe they can find something to gripe about, what does that tell you about the backwards US car buyer/market/offerings.
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eddy 4:57PM (2/05/2008)
Basically it's the same trend VW, Seat, Skoda and BMW are on. The Eco-pack is the same kind of packet of little changes that can improve mileage massivly. Normally there are real big improvements to aerodynamics and friciton losses, but the fiat pack seems to be quite a bad deal. There is no start-stop-automatic, no real CW-improvement and quite a big price for the new "improvements". A Skoda Octavia seems still to be the better deal, because you get very similar mileage for a slightly bigger car and better reliability. Furthermore Skodas construction quality is massivly better than Fiats.
Perhaps it would be senisble to make that package become standart, because even the big german marques which normally react quite slowly beginn to add standart ecopacks for their cars (Efficient Dynamics in evry BMW and the Modular Efficiency Kit in any Audi bigger than A3.)
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meme 6:18PM (2/05/2008)
How could you possibly think of that as greenwashing? $600 for 5mpg is only $120 per mpg. If only we could get that sort of buy on mpg in general! Think of it -- add an extra 50mpg for $6,000.
With a price that low, I'm sure lots of people will buy it. It's a great deal on some extra mpg.
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Matt Pipes 5:50PM (2/05/2008)
Good question, I think if it was something like an SUV that struggled
to get 20mpg it was be downright cycnical to market an "eco pack" that
boosted it to struggling to get 25mpg, but for a car that gets in
excess of 55mpg boosting it to 62mpg is putting it in hybrid company,
without the associated environmental hazards of dealing with the
lithium batteries down the road. One question though, is the milaege
quoted in US MPG or British MPG, (A british gallon is different)
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TheRookie 6:24PM (2/05/2008)
The owners who'll go for the "eco-pack" would have to buy tyres from the same make for the rest of their vehicle life if the latest EU proposal will get through:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressnews/215049/budget_tyres_face_shock_eu_axe.html
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rgseidl 6:43PM (2/05/2008)
The reason the eco-pack isn't standard equipment is that low-resistance tires offer less grip in fast corners while long gear ratios force you to downshift more quickly when you do need extra power. In other words, it's sensible but less less fun to drive.
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BHendrix 6:46PM (2/05/2008)
If it really works, and they're not lying about the amount of improvement, then I'm inclined to say that it isn't greenwashing. The consumer can take the information and decide if it's for real.
I wish the automakers here in North America would offer options like these. The Volvo C30 Efficiency show car was a great example of the concept.
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stevejust 8:14PM (2/05/2008)
@rgseidl:
I agree. While Sam was asking why they don't just do this in the first place, they can't in the markets we operate in. They have to meet performance benchmarks with competitor’s cars, which they can't do if all the Bravos had their "performance" limitations of LRRTs, longer gear ratios and lean computer performance programs in the first place. This allows them to meet market demands while offering an ECO alternative.
Whether or not its greenwashing will depend, IMHO, on how they advertise and make this package known to the consumer. If they promote it the same way dealers promote "rust proofing" and "all weather floor mats" then I think it's a cool development.
But if its a package that only people reading ABG are going to know to ask for, then it's complete crap.
I would be really interested to know how popular the package proves to be. I can't imagine people buying that car 'cause they think they're going to drive it around like an M3... so whatever performance loss there would be would be so negligible as to make the car really a referendum on whether people will spend an extra $500 to help the environment.
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 8:44PM (2/05/2008)
My guess is that the eco packs will prove popular indeed. This eco pack is one of the few cars to be exempt, for example, from the new Spanish eco-tax. The Bravo itself is selling very well, but with France and Spain having introduced the first eco-rebate system in January, consumers are shifting toward the A and B class car segments and dropping the luxury and SUV cars. In particular German car sales have collapsed in both countries:
http://www.anfac.es/global.htm (under estadisticas, matriculacion)
http://www.ccfa.fr/IMG/pdf/Communique-01022008.pdf
e.g. Audi and Mercedes sales in France/Spain dropped by 30.6%/21.7% and 30.1%/41.5% in January 2008 compared with January 2007. SUV and luxury car sales surged in December in anticipation of the new "dirty" car taxes but the January drop may be not so transient as the December rise. We shall see. What is pretty obvious though is that fewer German cars means a much greener planet. In Spain, for example, average emissions dropped by 5.5%. Fiat sales went up by 20% in January in Spain while the Spanish market dropped by 12.7%.
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GoodCheer 9:09PM (2/05/2008)
If you compare the cost/benefit ratio of this package with that of various hybrid dirve-train optoins available to us in the USA, I would say it comes out looking like a very good value.... what's the price primium for 2mpg in the Impala hybrid?
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ajg 2:19AM (2/06/2008)
Skodas more reliable than Fiats? You must be kidding. I would love to donate my 2006 Octavia to you as a gift - the worst car I've ever owned from new (replaced clutch at 10,000kms, broken engine mounts, replaced starter motor and 2 engine sensors - annoying sound from idle that cannot be corrected) My wife's Passat is a little better, but not much. My neighbour's Bravo has done 100,000 kms with no faults and only scheduled service. I bought a car from the VW stable for reliability. What an absolute mistake. Will be trading this car for a new Bravo at the end of the year. US residents take note - Fiat are building very reliable and competitive cars... the 500 is an absolute gem! Keep an open mind.
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eddy 3:13AM (2/06/2008)
My neighbour has an 2004 Alfa Romeo 147 amd he has the 3rd motor in it. And basicaly Alfa and Fiat have the same motors, so I think they still have the old problems with motor reliabiltiy. Or did that change with the new generation of diesel motors? The most reliable VW I know is the Audi A2. A friend bought one in 2002 and did drive about 250.000 km since then and still hadn't any problem. The real problem at VW were the Lopez-era cars: Ignazio Lopez was the man who ruined GMs reliability and who almost did the same to VW. His saving programms were very bad for qualitiy and reliability.
What about Fiats rust problems and about breaking ride-elements. That was their biggest problem in the 90s. Have they done something against that?
@Karl-Uwe
Fiat had really good Diesel technology, but they just missed some newer devolopments. Now that evrybody uses Common-Rail for their Diesel-Motors there are a lot of new designs that have great advantages over the new multijet engines. VWs new common-rail engines (2.0 TDI in Audi A4) with Piezo-injektion and quite nice new Bosch parts have very similar efficiency ratings and better tourque curves. Bosch and Siemens/VDO now have better Injektion systems and MAN has very efficient high power diesel engines and the first CNG-Controlled-auto-ignition-engine.Ad-Blue Technologie which will come this year for BMW, Audi and Mercedes seems to be very clean in compare to a normal diesel motor. Furthermore Fiat didn't do enough to improve the efficiency of normal gasoline motors. Even without that new changes Peugeot still would have better diesel-motors than fiat.
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Alpha 1:58PM (2/06/2008)
"The package does nothing special like make the car Euro5 compliant", because the 1.6L turbo diesel already is Euro5 compliant!
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psarhjinian 10:42AM (2/06/2008)
@Matt Pipes
If it could boost a SUV from 20 to 25 it would be a huge improvement. MPG is a disingenuous measurement as it distorts the relative economy, especially in low-mpg vehicles
Things make more sense if measured in L/100km:
* 20 MPG is 11.7 L/100km. 25mpg is 9.4L/100km. That's a savings of 2.3L of fuel every 100km travelled, which is huge.
* 55mpg is 4.3L/100km; 62 is 3.8. That's half a litre every 100km. Not nearly as big a deal.
This is an important thing to understand when criticizing, say, the Prius for getting 40mpg instead of 55 (1.5L/100 difference). It's still less of a gap then a Tahoe that gets 10 but should get 12 (4L/100km difference!). An eco-pak is an interesting idea and it's certainly something I'd invest in, given the option.
As for the "hazards of a hybrid battery": the metals in a battery pack are worth _money_. You don't just throw them out, you give them to the dealer or to a recycling centre. I'd suspect that, if hybrids catch on, you'll get a serious rebate (or pay a battery deposit, refundable on exchange). It's a lot cheaper to recondition a battery and/or recover metals than it would be to mine and process more ore.
I manage a large fleet (hundreds) of cellphone users and I can tell you I haven't trashed a single battery in eight years.
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Chad 10:59AM (2/06/2008)
I would gladly take a car with taller gear ratios that gave me say an 11 sec 0-60 time instead of an 8 sec 0-60 time if that got me an extra 5 mpg in say a honda civic. I don't need quick acceleration.
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 12:18PM (2/06/2008)
@eddy
I'd have to disagree, as I think the facts say otherwise. The FIAT common rail diesels are light-years ahead of the German diesels not least because they were introduced by a measure of years beforehand. The Germans were stubborn in persisting with what they already had for a number of years. FIAT common rail diesels are used by other manufacturers such as TATA, SAAB, Opel etc. As you mention MAN, Daimler spent over 2 billion euros last year for FIAT diesels for their trucks.
I also think the AUDI A4, irrespective of the engine, is a poor example to give as the price/quality ratio of French and Italian cars with similar specs is mind-boggling compared with the A4. Fiat have introduced a new twin-stage turbo multijet which is available today in Europe at 180hp on the SAAB 9-3 1.9 TTiD Aero and shortly also available in 190hp on the new Lancia Delta. The current multijets have better torque curves than the German diesels, while the TST multijet is in a league of its own.....
With the other engine types it's the same story. With the Renzo Landi CNG systems Fiat now have developed excellent CNG cars and have produced approx. 20 times the CNG vehicles of the German makes combined.
"Furthermore Fiat didn't do enough to improve the efficiency of normal gasoline motors". A camless petrol engine will be available this year, with absurd efficiencies (this has also been covered by ABG)!!!!
FIAT have invested heavily in improving the efficency of petrol, diesel and CNG systems. The Germans, on the contrary, have developed "luxury" vehicles (as an engineer "luxury" to me is more related to efficency and price/quality ratio) and SUVs (developing the very latest in cup-holder technology!). Both these classes will presumably be all but outlawed in Europe in a not-too-distant future.
If you had stated that the French have developed excellent common rail engines which have nothing to envy the FIAT engines for, then I'd have agreed. The HDi and dCi emgines are both excellent, but the Germans are simply way behind.
If you look at the ranking for the cleanest vehicles, you will see there are French and Italian cars in your lists, and perhaps a Smart (which is a different kettle of fish):
http://www.vcacarfueldata.org.uk/information/how-to-use-the-data-tables.asp#petrol
Note how VW is absent from these lists. They have tried to come out with e.g. a POLO bluemotion but at 19000+ euros, it's a rather lame response.
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Karl-Uwe Strunzen 12:38PM (2/06/2008)
More on the 1.6 miltijet from Channel4 (UK):
http://www.channel4.com/4car/rt/fiat/bravo/17019/2
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eddy 4:28PM (2/06/2008)
It's not exactly years behind Fiat and the French. Behind Peugeot in Diesel Technology wouldn't be a shame: They are leading in Diesel engine development since the 1960s and there are a lot of good reasons to use their engines. The biggest reason why it can't be years behind for the germans is the parts that are produced external of the car producers at companies like Bosch, Siemens/VDO and Magna. Bosch and Siemens had some very nice new developments in the last 2 years. It won't take very long until the german mass producers use that technologies too. Keeping Pumpe-Düse seemed quite reasonable for a long time, because that motors had really good compression for their development time (1996 - 2007). By the way VW has licensed their Diesel motors to Toyata and Chrysler (even if their diesel motors still cannot compete to the old french masters of diesel technology). The A4 over all is still a really cool car (extremly good ride, nearly perfect driving stability, very good weight balance, extremly good CVT transmission). I drove it once and it is a perfect example that there is more than just a good motor and weight reduction what is important about a good car. Another big problem of the germans is the very high wages (ancillary labor costs are the highest in Europe) in germany (It just doesn't give you any profit if you try to build a cheap car). The next big point about new german cars will be the parallel/serial hybrid systems: It's just a pity that Audi was the first "mass-producer" of hybrid-cars but couldn't make profit with it and stopped the project. A great reason why germany doesn't have efficient cars is marketing flops of the big producers: If the A2 was positioned in the right market segment, there wouldn't be a single VW/Audi which isn't build of alluminum (material costs are not too different and production costs would sink with scaling effects). Another real pity is that german car producers never continue projects, that they design with the good technical universities (What happend with the RWTH-Aachen Hybrids ?)
Still Fiat did some impressing work in the last few years: The crashtestfree prototype system they developed with magna is extremly progressive. Only Porsche is a producer who uses a similar CES system. The new design is very beautifull too.
The MAN motor i meant was not the MAN Truck engines but the new CNG Generator Engines, which are the first HCCI-gas-engines ever built for customers. The other big deal is the Mercedes Diesotto-Project ,which will be the first HCCI-car-engine to be market-ready (after Daimler missed the first trend they invested sums that Fiat couldn't even afford for the development of two new models). The first Daimler to show off Mercedes new ECO-cars will be the S200 and S300 Blutec Hybrids which will launch at the end of this year (at the moment they say that at launch date this will be the most efficient car of its class).
If the technology would be far behind FIAT companys which have giantic money reserves (like BMW and Daimler) would just buy that nearly bancrupt italian producer.
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Wise Golden 7:35PM (2/06/2008)
"Hm. Am I being too hard on Fiat or is this a great idea other car companies should replicate?"
Yes, you're being too hard on Fiat. $500 bucks for a 5 MPG improvement? That's a good deal and I would take it if I were buying a car that had that option. It's called capitalism -- they have a right to charge for intellectual property.
"why not make the "Eco" pack standard?"
Are the ads that apear on this web site free, or do you get paid for them? They don't cost you anything -- shouldn't you just allow them to be free?
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