The biggest influencer of fuel economy is the driver. Low rolling resistance tyres save 3%; auto stop-start can save 5% or more. 

The driver, however, can save 20% – and it is this massive potential, greater even than the sum total of every Bluemotion-style pack of eco changes to date, that BMW is seeking to tap into.

The new BMW 1 Series marks the debut of ECO PRO, an interactive function of iDrive that teaches greener driving and rewards for doing so (it’s also coming to the new 3 Series too). We’ve had such systems before – Fiat’s eco:Drive, Ford and Honda’s ‘petals’ and so forth – but BMW’s is the best yet.

More than just an electronic ‘badge’ that are usually an intriguing gimmick for a few weeks but then forgotten, ECO PRO offers tangible benefits that offer the potential for game-changing developments in the future.

It is opt-in: drivers must select ECO PRO from the BMW drive select switch (‘anti-Sport’ as one engineer dubbed it). Doing so does three things:

• Selects bespoke settings within engine ECU

• Optimises electric load

• Displays ECO PRO screen

The electric load saver function is meritorious in itself. No mainstream maker has fitted a function that dials back the electrical consumption of accessories such as electric seats and heated rear window: a bit like the National Grid cutting power delivery to your house.

The interactive element is the snazzy bit. All the time you are consuming less fuel than the car’s combined average, the famed BMW economy gauge (now electronically represented) dives into the blue zone. Blue means you’re saving fuel – and the deeper you can get it in there, the more fuel you’re saving.

There’s more. To make it tangible, an additional readout, also in blue, shows how many miles more you’re getting from the tank. This is the ingenious part: the more you take it steady, the more miles you eek out.

It is reset each time you refuel, so is stored even if you turn the engine off. Thus, a permanent incentive to save fuel and claw the miles back. A savings account that’s in your hands – so if you want a ‘free’ 50-mile’ trip on the weekended, ease off to claw back the miles.

There’s yet more. Don’t get the idea of eco driving? ECO PRO to the rescue – it flashes up tips and hints on the screen as you go, based on an analysis of driving style. It knows that heavy braking is not efficient, nor is going fast, nor is accelerating hard, nor is holding onto gears.

All of this stuff may be obvious to us, but it’s not to all: a few lines of text saying as much, as the driver commits the eco error, will soon give them the idea.

And as it’s all part of the challenge, if they’re engaged by saving fuel, they’ll be keen to take the messages on board.

Is this gamification of saving fuel, with an active feedback loop to provide tuition, the future of saving fuel? The driver is the single biggest key to big, big gains in fuel efficiency: are we to see more onboard games in the future, feeding a real-time PlayStation Network to turn drivers into eco-inspired gamers?

+ BMW 1 Series power meters

+ VW Golf R dials’ cool blue point

+ Diesel drives Peugeot sub-130g/km CO2 win

Stop-start or start-stop: which does your car have?

Like so many titles in the car world, each car brand has a different way of describing, er, stop-start.

Now, logic to me says it should be stop-start. The function stops the engine at traffic lights, then starts it.

Not everyone agrees, though. Here’s the official wording preferred by the UK’s leading car makers. As you can see, there’s quite some variety there:

Audi: start-stop

BMW: Auto Start Stop

Fiat: Start&Stop

Ford: Auto-Start-Stop

Jaguar: Intelligent Stop/Start

Kia: Intelligent Stop and Go

Land Rover: Intelligent Stop/Start

Mercedes-Benz: ECO start/stop

Peugeot: Stop and Start

Renault: Stop and Start

SEAT: Start & Stop

Skoda: Stop/Start

Toyota: Stop & Start

Vauxhall: Start/Stop

Volkswagen: Start-stop

Consensus? Start-stop seems to be favoured by the German brands, but stop-start is preferred by the Brits and the French. Not sure what this tells us, other than we Brits have one form of logic and Germans have another.

Does it matter? Well, it does if you’re a fledgling subeditor and want to create SEO-friendly consistency across your work. From now, then, I’ve decided to call it stop-start: hyphen rather than forward slash, in the logical way of how it works rather than the preference of the world’s leading premium brands.

Clients I write for may have other preferences, which I’ll of course fall in line with… but how many people refer to stop-start in their style guide – and, if so, what’s the favoured order?

Do YOU have a preference? Share ‘em if so and let’s see if we can get a start a standard…

+ Ford adding smart stop start

+ Land Rover Defender: the great green potential

+ 2012 Jaguar XF engineering: did you know?

Green cars and eco sub-brands have to be a staple of any right-thinking manufacturer these days. 

If you’re not showing off your eco credentials with a special badge applied to your very greenest, most environmentally-aware models, you are, it seems, a little bit nowhere.

These green sub-brands are a sort of BMW M/Audi RS/Mercedes AMG version of an eco car: the most hardcore, highest-green-performance planet-savers. If you like green cars, these are your poster boys.

Each manufacturer has different standards for its greenest cars, but the principles are generally similar: dictate a CO2 benchmark they must dip beneath, stipulate a range of technolgoies such as stop-start that they must be fitted with, maybe throw in the fact they should be built in an ISO 14001 facility, and bingo: one green sub-brand set of standards.

But boy, they’re confusing. What’s an Econetic and what’s an Ecomotive? Who likes eco2 and who goes for EcoDynamics?

Well, salvation: here is an easy user guide to all the eco brands on the market. Coming up will be an explanation of all the standards each has to adopt.

For now, let’s keep things simple. Want to know what’s the greenest Renault and the most eco Ford? Well, here’s them all… updated as more come to market!

Audi: TDIe

BMW: EfficientDynamics

Citroen: Airdream

Ford: Econetic

Hyundai: Blue Drive

Kia: EcoDynamics

Mercedes-Benz: BlueEfficiency

MINI: Minimalist

Mitsubishi: ClearTec

Nissan: Pure Drive

Renault: eco2

SEAT: Ecomotive

Skoda: Greenline

Toyota: Optimal Drive

Vauxhall: EcoFlex

VW: Bluemotion AND Bluemotion Technology

Volvo: DRIVe

+ Land Rover Defender: the great green potential

+ EV 101: electric car basics

+ How Honda justifies the Jazz Hybrid

Peugeot has achieved sub-130g/km status this year.

That’ll please European legislators, who say European car makers must hit this range-average target – or else…. they’ll pay.

It’s been a gradual but sustained CO2 reduction for Peugeot: in 2001, its range average was 155g/km, falling to 145g/km in 2006. And the main driver of this? Diesel.

Today, Peugeot’s sales split is biased 64.4% diesel, and it commands 8.3% of the European diesel market overall. As diesel is, says Peugeot, 30% more fuel efficient (for similar advantages in CO2 too), it has an inherent sales advantage that is now paying big dividends.

Now, it’s going one further, and making a diesel hybrid. It’s been much-discussed elsewhere how logical this is, but here’s a bald-stat summary: Peugeot’s four-wheel drive crossover hybrid has a better CO2 figure than Honda’s five-door supermini hybrid.

The added logic of the Peugeot 3008 HYbrid4

Why, though, asked a French journalist, is it introducing it in the 3008 range, rather than an all-new car? Because, replied Peugeot, the 3008 has been a bit of a hit.

289,800 have been sold since it was launched in 2009; in 2010, the 129,600 sales total was, apparently, 40% up on objective. Year to date, it’s up another 16%. Even more impressively, the sales are 55% conquest, compared to the normal 35-40% for mainstream makes.

The 3008 will overtake the 308 in Peugeot UK’s sales league this year – a more expensive, more premium model overtaking the lower-range heartland that used to win it so many sales. The hybrid will also take 20% of those sales next year, too. Yes, 20% – for a model that starts at £27k.

So Peugeot is charging premium prices, presumably winning some premium customers, and backing it up with marketing focused on making it appear more premium. Could it actually end up becoming the mainstream-premium maker it wants? The 3008 HYbrid4 will be a telling test.

Even more smartly, although it’s pushing up prices, it won’t be paying any CO2 penalties as a result. The HYbrid4 technology is cleverly modular, so can be applied to any C- or D-sector model. 99g/km Peugeot 508 It’s on the way next year – with the 109g/km Audi Allroad-style Peugeot 508 RXH there to, yup, continue the premium drive.

Peugeot driven by diesel

All thanks to that staple of Peugeot’s range, the diesel engine. Diesel allowed Peugeot to get its average below 130g/km, without hefty investment in high-tech eco gadgetry. Now, it’s allowing the brand to explore new premium opportunities with further-enhanced impressive low CO2 claims.

The diesel-electric hybrid experience is classy, feel-good and, crucially, works with the sophistication expected of a premium brand drivetrain. Now, Peugeot’s going to exploit it, with some classy upper-range models.

Apparently, the 3008 HYbrid4 is generating real interest, and the special launch editions of the Peugeot 508 RXH sold out within three days. People already like diesels, and like the idea of hybrids. Peugeot has combined the two to create a very marketable concept that’s working even in sectors previously out of bounds to the brand.

The power of going green: there’s a clear business case for it too, that Peugeot is already enjoying. Yet more evidence that, right now, green cars really do hold all the cards.

And diesel is, at the moment, key to the whole green car movement.

+ Land Rover Defender: the great green potential

+ SEAT applies the sun green

+ How Honda justifies the Jazz Hybrid

Land Rover this week launched the Defender version that will give the oldest Landie on sale yet another stay of execution.

The old 2.4-litre Ford Transit engine has been replaced by a 2.2-litre turbodiesel, related to that in the Freelander 2.

Producing 122hp and 265lb/ft of torque, it crucially also sports a diesel particulate filter, helping it achieve supertough Euro 5 emissions standards.

This is a legislative requirement for all new cars on sale. It came into force in January 2011 for passenger cars (and January of 2012 for light commercial vehicles such as the Defender) and has already done for family favourites such as the Honda Civic i-CTDi.

No, Honda wasn’t able to make that model Euro 5 emissions compliant, so it hasn’t been on sale since the start of the year. (A surprise for a company with its heart in engines such as Honda. Then again, that heart is in petrol engines, so perhaps it’s no surprise the diesel died.)

Now Land Rover has cracked it though, meaning the Defender can now stay on sale until 2016. That’s when the next wave of legislation kicks in, and around which high-level discussions are under way within Land Rover right now.

Green Defender

Here’s a fanciful thought for now, though: how about a stop-start Defender eD4 eco special?

Crazy? Well, why not..? There’s a stop start Freelander, after all, and the 2.2-litre engine has recently been revised once again for the Range Rover Evoque, where the stop-start version emits as little as 129g/km CO2.

Why not put this engine into the Defender? Indeed, why not go one further – optimise it for the road, alter the gearing, swap off-road tyres for low rolling resistance on-road ones, fit it solely to the 90 version… creating a sub-225g/km Defender – or, even, a sub-200g/km Defender?

The new 2.2-litre 90 version emits 266g/km, with its heavy off-road bias. It would be a big jump to 200g/km, but it’s not that fanciful when you realise how off-road optimised the Defender is.

There are probably a whole host of reasons why (including the fact Defenders are built for off-roading, and an on-road special may not fit with the brand values), but from a PR stance alone, it would be quite some statement for Land Rover to make.

Green Defender special, showing how eco even old icons can be? As a way of showing how truly modern and environmentally friendly Land Rover can be, it would be a flag-bearer and then some. There’s no shortage of engineering talent within Land Rover that could make it so if challenged to, either.

So, Land Rover MD John Edwards, how about it?

+ Renault Energy dCi 130: F1 on the road

+ June 2011: what is Land Rover doing at the moment?

+ SEAT applies the sun green

Infiniti has an M35h in the UK – and it is very lucky indeed to have it.

“This was one of the last cars produced before the Japanese earthquake hit,” said UK PR head Wayne Bruce.

It is undergoing trials prior to going on sale in September (again, delayed because of the earthquake: Infiniti’s V6 and V8 engine plant was badly hit in the quake). But one factor in particular is keeping Infiniti busy: the size of its alloy wheels.

In the interests of efficiency, the M35h is currently sold only in GT Premium spec. As standard, these models come with 18-inch alloy wheels. However, most UK Infiniti buyers actually choose the S grade – because it has 20-inch alloys.

“One of the main buying factors for Infiniti customers is design,” said Bruce. “98% of FX sales are S grade, mainly because of the big wheels.”

So, why not just fit 20-inch wheels to the GT Premium M35h? Not that simple, it seems. “There is a rule within Infiniti, that S is just not cosmetic. There are involved below-the-surface changes involved in creating them, too.

“Simply fitting a big set of alloys to a GT Premium car would go against this philosophy. We thus need to work closely with Japan, to see if we can find a solution.

“Another thing we like to do at Infiniti is give our customers what they want…” Watch this space on that, it seems. GT Premium on 20″s, or a new trim grade entirely? Time will tell.

Mind you, those who want the fastest accelerating hybrid on sale will already be happy, he added. “It does 0-60mph in 5.5 seconds. The Porsche Panamera does it in 6 seconds.”

Fans of Japanese heritage will also like that assessment M35h model Infiniti UK has. It features unique wood on the centre console, that looks fantastically glittery and sparkly in light.

“It is maki-e wood, where white ash goes through a six-stage process – which includes sanding it down then rubbing in real silver powder.

“It is made by Yamaha, and is actually produced in the firm’s piano factory. Apparently, there’s going to be a piano made in it, too…”

+ What is Infiniti?

+ Infiniti: unearthing the Etherea

+ 2012 Jaguar XF engineering: did you know?

BMW has announced it will sell 1.5 million 3- and 4-cylinder engines by 2015.

It’s all part of the premium giant’s intention to become even more green, and continue its EfficientDynamics drive.

It’s also a staggering number: last year, BMW sold 1.5 million cars IN TOTAL. It wants to drive this to 2 million by 2015 – meaning 3 in 4 of them are to be, well, 3 or 4 cylinder units.

Which finally means its famous HQ has come into its own.

See, for years, BMW has been famous for 6-cylinder engines. Its straight-sixes have long been adorable, with icons including most of the 1970s and 80s mainstream stuff, plus the 325i, the 528i, the E46 M3, the E34 M5, and umpteen more besides (what I wouldn’t do for an E36 328i Touring, for instance).

Since the E36 318i started becoming the company car of choice in the 1990s though, 4-cylinders have started to win out.

Good. I love BMW 4-cylinder engines, for their raspy goodness and throbby involvement: since diesels started to become good in the E46 too, they’ve joined the pile for offering thrusting power and amazing economy.

Which takes us to the Munich HQ. Built between 1968 and 1972, just in time for the 1972 Olympic Games, it’s known as BMW-Vierzylinder in German. Yes, ‘BMW four-cylinder’. Although most prefer simply ‘BMW Tower’. The Karl Schwanzer-designed building won historical status in 1999, and is said to be the most iconic piece of architecture in Munich.

UK fame

It first really came to the UK’s attention with the Rover fallout (remember the late-night reports on the news when the crisis was unfolding?). How strange, said car commentators at the time, that a brand famed for its 6 cylinder engines should live within an HQ paying homage to the 4-cylinder engine.

Not anymore. 4 cylinder units already give BMW its profitable volume, and it looks this is set to continue in the future. Indeed, the 4 cylinder look like they’re going to supplant 6-pots, with 3-cylinder units nipping in below the 4-pots. See the new X3 xDrive28i’s 2.0 TwinPower twin-scroll turbo as the first step towards this.

BMW is cutting its cylinder count, improving its economy, not affecting its engine power and, yes, making its famous HQ fully relevant in the modern world.

Architects are clever folks, and have to go to University for 7 years to qualify. But I didn’t know just how clever, until this.

The future of the BMW car predicted by the architect firm that designed its HQ? Well, I’ll be…

+ Customer feedback steers BMW engineers

+ Profiling the roads of the world with BMW

+ BMW April Fool brilliance (once again)

Honda was refreshingly forthright in the press conference for the new Honda Jazz Hybrid.

No, unlike other hybrids, it doesn’t dip below the 100g/km barrier.

Such openness is a characteristic of the eminently approachable and real-world Honda press office team, but still surprised some journos who had their killer question snuffed out by the very person they were going to throw it at.

“We could have got it under,” said the PR man, “but that wasn’t the objective. We were aiming to significantly reduce emissions but still retain all the practicality of the standard Jazz.”

The firm has indeed done this: boot space is unaltered, despite the batteries in the rear, and the genius Magic Seats are also there in tact and untouched.

Compare to the Toyota Auris HSD – not in a ‘we’re better, they’re better’ kind of way, added the PR man, but in a ‘different car, different approach’ manner. “Toyota has aimed at the lowest possible CO2, which means it uses larger batteries.” These encroach into the boot, meaning the standard Auris’ 354-litre boot reduces to 233 litres in the Auris HSD.

As “practicality is the number 1 reason for people buying a Honda Jazz”, you can see why Honda took its alternative approach.

100g/km 100g/km 100g/km

Some Brits may still not get it. See, we’re actually a bit obsessed with sub-100g/km cars in the UK. Yes, it does mean cars get free road tax – but as the penalty for dipping over 100g/km is only £10 per year, Honda’s 104g/km Jazz Hybrid is hardly a financial catastrophe.

(“Also, don’t forget, the Jazz is a global car. Not everyone is focused on 100g/km, like the UK.”)

Besides, there’s another key bonus of the Jazz: it is powered by petrol, unlike nearly every other sub-100g/km CO2 car on sale. As I’ve found out this week, the NOx, Particulates and other emissions of diesels is quite a big issue, which means some ‘clean green’ cars may not be quite as green as the makers claim.

One to be explored in greater depth, I think: come back for more as this ‘ere journo learns all. Not before he’s savoured a bit more of the candid, free-thinking, nothing-to-hide approach of the Honda press office, mind.

+ How Honda justifies the Jazz Hybrid

+ The more things change…

+ The latest thing to sell cars

MINI is helping pay off the economic deficit that is preoccupying Cameron and Clegg’s coalition Government.

How? By making lots of cars and exporting 4 in 5 of them.

Last year, Plant Oxford made 216,000 MINIs (a car every 80 seconds). With more than 170,000 exported, this added up to a huge amount of cash flowing into the country.

How much? Try north of £2bn… that’s the total worth of MINI’s exports last year.

Even better, many of the bits used to make the cars were sourced from UK firms. MINI’s 40-odd UK components suppliers were paid £1bn for the bits they sold.

This all boils down to a total contribution of £1bn to the UK GDP, each and every year. As Jurgen Hedrich, Plant Oxford MD explained, ‘that is 1 percent of all UK manufacturing output…’

1 percent! Not bad, aye?

Mind you, we’ve still got some way to go before we match other nations. Germany exports 86 percent of its manufacturing, while China exports more than 90 percent. The UK, in its entirety, exports just 60 percent…

At least MINI, along with other car makers such as Nissan, Vauxhall and Toyota, are trying to up that.

+ MINI eyes on Nissan Juke

+ MINI not so mini? Blame the photographer!

+ MINI theory on two nation future

Ford in North America will, by next year, have fitted Auto Start Stop to all new cars on sale.

This will save at least 4% in fuel used, for every new Ford sold in the world’s second-largest car market.

Depending on usage, the savings can stretch as high as 10%: after living with stop-start in a VW Golf Bluemotion, this seems pretty believable. Fuel economy used to plummet once I turned off the motorway during my daily commute. Not anymore.

Just one thing, that first struck me back when I drove a stop-start Mercedes A-Class a few years ago. When the engine was off, the water pump stopped (as, of course, it would)… and the heater started blowing cold, not hot.

This was hardly a step forward: it was a bit like driving a 1950s classic, whose dynamo-powered headlights would dim when you stopped. Not a clever thing, that.

Luckily, Ford’s being smart. Fully aware that US buyers wouldn’t take this, the firm’s fitting stop-start 2.0: not only does it have a larger-capacity battery and upgraded starter motor, it also has an electric pump to keep the coolant flowing through the engine.

Thus ensuring the heater still blows hot. Small detail? Seemingly yes – but experience of that A-Class on a January test drive taught me that such things matter.

Far from being a cheap add-on way of massaging fuel-saving legislation, stop-start is actually quite involved technology. Land Rover was the first one to really understand the intricacies involved: an engineer explained to me just what went into developing the Freelander Td4_e at its launch in 2008.

This included ensuring the radio stayed on, the CD didn’t jump, the sat nav didn’t reset, the phone call that was underway when the car came to a halt didn’t cut out. Tiny, easily-overlooked details, that can drive customers mad when they discover them, should engineers not have.

Land Rover, of course, went one step further. The engineers there are genius: they hated the diesel shudder that most oil-burners exhibit when switched off – and knew that this would become exceedingly annoying when magnified thanks to stop-start.

So, they massaged the fuel injection and valve timing, to ensure there was no resistance when it cut off. Smooth run-down, in other words. Once you’re aware of how some diesels shudder when you turn them off, you’ll really appreciate this.

The rush to stop-start is obvious: due to the way official fuel consumption tests are arranged, standardisation can give official mpg gains, that town-bound users will find are magnified.

Trouble is, some makers did this without giving thought to the implications of such a system.

Mercedes has to rank as guilty here, for its chilling blast of switch-off sufferance. It’s not alone, I’m sure. But it’s a transgression that’s going to be rectified soon – because others aren’t falling for it.

Stop-start: Smart, but also dumb, if not integrated by the smart.

+ VW Golf Bluemotion: GTI for eco greens

+ New Ford Focus raises great expectations

+ Vauxhall does the electric car market a favour