Team-BHP - Does the Real-Time Fuel Economy indicator change your driving style?

Yes it does. I have always been conscious of fuel economy and the environment. Maybe it is because I am a Chemical Engineer and was actively involved in energy efficiency in my work. I had a Fiat 1100 (1964 Model) which I modified to attach a vacuum gauge to the intake manifold and installed it in the dashboard. I then adjusted my driving style to get the best vacuum. I suppose it habituated me to have better driving practices to get a decent mileage all the time. The other evidence is that my daughter and wife who had fairly inefficient driving styles have now become conscious after seeing the instantaneous fuel efficiency reading. All in all it is good to have the MID set to the instantaneous fuel efficiency display.

I voted NO (and it is not a careless NO).

In Bangalore traffic there is only one driving style. My vote is ==> when I get a chance in Bangalore with low traffic or when I am out of Bangalore.

It is not that I am not conscious of FE, savings etc, but I want to drive how I like to drive (ofcourse I do respect and follow traffic rules).

There is a satisfaction factor in ones own driving style, I don't want to alter my driving style to satisfy my lesser interests.

I drive an Elite i20 daily, which does *NOT* have any sort of mileage gauges.

Based on tankful to tankful methods, I've tried sedate driving, spirited driving, and no matter how I drive, I always average 9.5 to 10.5 km/l. My normal driving style is somewhere in between, I'm not a very sedate driver, neither am I a pedal to the metal kind of guy.

Hence, I have stopped worrying about it. I just drive how I want to. As it is, when I went for a petrol car, I knew what I was getting into. There is always a smile on my face when I get to drive my car just how I want to drive it, so I really don't want to change, just for a little more mileage.

Yes- whenever I drive our Ertiga during our long intercity highway trips. I usually maintain highway speeds between 110-120kmph and I glance at the MID every now and then just to see if I am getting the best mileage possible at these speeds. PS: I don't drive at a constant 80kmph for the sake for getting max mileage. I don't look at the MID when I drive inside the city cause I think its not of much help and so I rely on my sedate driving skills.

No- when I drive my Alto K10. Because it is fun to rev this car on good roads. There is no mileage indicator, 21kmpl and 14kmpl are the best and worst mileage I got so far by tankful to tankful calculation.

I got this 20.2kmpl average after completing a Chennai-Coimbatore-Chennai ~1200kms round trip last month in our Ertiga diesel.

Voted yes. I get up to 21 kmpl on my Tiago Revotron XZA on highways. After 4 months with it and 12.5k kms, the average kmpl stands at 17.9, 14.8 being the worst (in-city obviously) and 20.9 (mostly highway) being the best tankful to tankful. I wish it had an Eco mode, but I'm not complaining because the Sport mode more than compensates for it when needed for those quick overtakes.

I'm more of a 'momentum' driver. I plan my overtakes well in advance, so that I avoid using the brakes. I try and maintain a constant speed of 90 on plain roads, push it a notch further on downward slopes, but I take it easy on inclines.

Voted for No. Initially i was very sedate driver and i was maintaining uniform speed to save bucks on fuel, but i was missing all the fun. For example i could overtake one car with downshifting but i was avoiding.

After one trip where i was little rash and noticed the difference in mileage was less than 2 km, but the drive was good. And then i stopped counting mileage.

But, i maintain record of all the fill-up and service history in one app as sometime these data helps when you are going for service.

Voted for the third option as i don't have a RTFE indicator in my Alto. But from a usage perspective I have never really calculated the fuel efficiency in its strict terms. Having said that i did a quick calculation for my recent trip to Goa wherein i got a mileage of around 20 kmpl, so in a sense i burnt less amount of fuel and saved on some expenses which was kind of a feel good thing. My daily regimen involves very less of driving in my own car as i get hauled by organization provided transport and my monthly fuel expenses are less than two thousand rupees. That amount gives me a fuel tank almost and i roam around everywhere within the city limits without feeling a pinch.

I can't say I became more sedate driver with the realtime mileage indicator but rather with the Avg mileage indicator. I have been using my Ertiga for past 4 yrs now and 60000kms and prior to it Swift D and Fiesta D. These things never affected me untill say very recently when I changed my service centre and also changed oil from Shell petrol pump for the first time and what happened is history -

- 9am Bangalore to Dharmapuri showed a whopping 28 kmpl on my Ertiga. First time ever. prev bests even with sedate driving was 23-24 at the max. I will do an immediate tankful next time I see 25+.
- Then I kept seeing 22-23 MID avg for full trip durations - Blr to Kochi and return, Blr to Calicut (little Ghat roads) and return etc
- Did tankful methods on a 4 trips with an overall mileage of 22 kmpl which was much different from my avg on long trips in same route which were 16-16.5

Hence psycologically what happened is that I reduced my speeds, I used to be aggressive earlier but now very very sedate. My mom was surprised to see this change in me and started saying the trip with my brother on Fortuner was better lol.

So much mileage on offer why should I waste my own money and country's resources :P Verdict is - 80 to 90kmph, no turbo usage, the mileage I have over a 4000 km test run spanning across blr, salem, kochi, mysore, wayanad, calicut is 22 kmpl (full time a/c and 70% times rear a/c too). Ertiga is capable of upto 25kmpl easy if you don't have traffic snarls and have a clean 100% highway drive. I am in love with my Ertiga again !

Vote for "I don't care". Do I care about environment? For sure. However, for my monthly running, running after fuel efficiency on a turbo petrol is like missing the woods for the trees. The only time the RTFE is important for me is when I am low on fuel with some distance to go for the nearest bunk. I would then carefully watch my RPMs and keep an eye on RTFE to ensure I am in the most efficient zone.

The only change it has brought about is permanently switch off the sober ECO drive mode in my Tiago. I drive majorly in cluttered city roads and during initial days, I used to drive around in ECO mode thinking it made a difference to the FE. Over the course of time, understood that the dip in performance viz-a-viz the gain in FE is too much of a bad bargain, at least for this car. Now ECO mode only gets permission on Highway runs. And I enjoy my City rides much more.