Garmin Nuvi 2X5 and 7X5 GPS ± calculates efficiency.
 

This week Garmin announced EecoRouting for their 2X5 and 7X5 series of GPSs. You can choose your routing type. It is a free update.

http://www.garmin.com/garmin/webdav/...l_Steps_06.jpg


http://www8.garmin.com/buzz/ecoroute/ Click on "Free Downloads".

Sadly I have the 200w and not the 205W or I would definately check this out. It even claims to give real time fuel mileage and other great information. Also click on the Conserving Resources tab. This could turn out to be really cool.

It seems like a good alternative for pre OBD-II cars. I would like to see how it compares with a scangauge. It can even calculate fuel burn for your route and give you the cost.

It can really only calculate fuel usage based off of acceleration though, which won't give an exact figure. It's probably good for estimation purposes, but I can't see it being too accurate, especially if you do any EOCing.

You need to enter your city and highway mileage. It probably has an algorithm to calculate what the average person using normal driving habits would do. It would also be a good baseline to compair your results to the computer's calculations.

Over time I bet that you could tweek the city/hwy variables in the computer to match what you are actually doing. Start with what your car actually gets with your drivning style for city and highway it would probably come fairly close +- a couple of mpg. It is a garbage in garbage out computer, but given the correct variables it has the potential to be very good.

It would no doubt work well for choosing a route. For guys like me with pre-OBD-II ecms it is a good place to start. Also it would be great for those can't or don't want to build and install a custom fuel computer. I have to applaud Garmin for their effort.

It's definitely a good idea, there's no doubt about that. And I agree, the route planning is a great feature. Does it take things like elevation into account, for coasting down hills? If so, that would be an amazing feature.

It's great to see companies taking economical driving into account now, and this is definitely a step in the right direction.

I can't speak to the elevation change issue with any authority but my guess is that they assume that for a normal length trip the topography will be fairly uniform for a given area. My guess would be that after a certain mumber of miles and in certain areas it would default to the shortest distance mode.

I have noticed that using Fastest Time my 200w will not always route me the fastest way without entering a "via point" because it would take me to major roadways and avoid small towns.

You can't totally trust it anyway. Last fall it guided me down a minimum maintenance road and I had selected, "Avoid gravel roads" in my route preferences. I thought," how bad could it be? This is Iowa". Very, very bad! It was the most terrifying and exhilarating thing that I have done in years. Friends, if you see a sign that says "Minimum Maintenance Road - Enter at own risk", you should realize that the government agency that installed it is lieing to you. It is not a road at all, but rather a path of terror that leads only to vehicle damage and soiled underwear. My wife still does not speak of the events of that day. If you want a good laugh you can read about it here. the thread is called "There I was. Thought I was gonna die". "Never completely trust your GPS. It knows about places that you never want to be.

Has anyone used the Garmin Eco-Route yet?

Garmin Eco-Route Add-on Turns Your GPS Into a Green-Driving Teacher : TreeHugger

I'm curious how it works and how good the info is. I got my wife a Garmin Nuvi a few years ago to cut down on the "I'm lost and I don't know how to get there" phone calls. However, her's isn't compatible with this new 'eco-route' system. Just wondering if it's worth the upgrade.

The treehugger page says it needs a special cable that uses bluetooth transmitter but I couldn't find anything about this on the Garmin website. It's only worth it if it actually plugs into the OBDII and uses real data like the scanguage. This site says it does:
Garmin ecoRoute ESP | GPS Tracklog

i haven't used the eco-route, but i have used the eco-challenge. (it just observes).
all it does is score you on acceleration, braking, and how well you stay on the posted MPH.
i never found info on what it expects on feet per minute for accel and braking.
it rates me poorly on accel and i know it must be preferring me to get up to the posted MPH sooner than i do. it also rates me poorly for driving under the posted mph. eco-challenge does not consider elevation in any factor.

i'll get eco-route asap, but can't really test it until Jan 3rd when my road trips pick back up.

The Ecoroute is a gimmick. It added 45 minutes to a one hour trip to save a few pennies, supposedly! You have to provide your EPA city and highway ratings, fill-up data, and consumption. I won't be using any more Ecoroutes, that's for sure. You can try it w/o actually driving the route. The estimated trip duration is so much longer, nobody in his right mind would do it. Most of us have a life.

Interesting article on the new ecoroute "HD":
A closer look at Garmin's ecoRoute HD | CES 2010 - CNET

Looks like it has a wireless bluetooth from the OBDII. A lot of the same info you get from a scanguage:

I just saw this. I envisioned a similar product in my head. Essentially a scangauge with a built in GPS on a larger screen. This gets pretty close. And the wireless sending of the data is a smart idea. :thumbup: