Kia adds Eco Driving System to Optima sedan
So-called "Eco driving" lamps are nothing new in many cars, but somehow they have never been included in any Korean cars until now. Kia has just launched an updated version of the Optima sedan and it features a lamp that changes colors within the speedometer. In a post on the Kia Buzz blog, Hyun Jin Cho of the company's Sustainability Management Team discusses the techniques that drivers can use to save fuel. Most of these are pretty obvious but bear repeating such as go with the flow of traffic, avoid hard acceleration and check your tire pressures regularly. To help drivers achieve maximum fuel efficiency, Kia is adding the ECO lamp that glows red when you're driving too aggressively, white when driving in a typical fashion and green when ... well, you know what that means.
Kia recently did a test where they had 100 drivers take out ten of its cars on a four-mile loop. After the first loop, the drivers were shown how to take advantage of the ECO lamp and subsequently improved their fuel efficiency by 10-20 percent. It's nothing new but it certainly is worth repeating that that providing drivers with some feedback on their behavior can help to reduce fuel consumption.
[Source: Kia]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
stevefazek 6:17PM (6/17/2008)
my 1988 saab 900T SPG had a up shift light telling me when to shift pretty much the same thing. It just looks at RPMs and throttle %
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Seth 11:08AM (6/18/2008)
So, Basically they are just installing a 'fuel mizer' free of charge. Any manufacturer, or dealer specifically, can just throw those in for free at the time of purchase. Heck if you read autobloggreen you probably already own one.
http://www.digitalfuelmizer.com/
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XLR8 7:25PM (6/19/2008)
What I hear from the engineer who developed this(every Korean car fan knows at least one Hyundai-Kia engineer, and yes means that I'm Korean) it doesn't just indicate you the optimal point of shift. It's sourced from the ECU which the ECO-drive lamp operates considering the amount of fuel injected. There used to be "ECONO ZONE" indicators painted in green on Daewoo cars until early 2000s as well as many buses around Korea(they had it for longer period of time) but didn't have anything to do with the ECU. That's why Kia is telling it is first in Korean industry. Daewoo actually did say they were the "First in Korean automobile industry" to introduce fuel-efficient driving and there are some controversy going on in Korean car forums. haha
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