PLX Kiwi Tells You How to Drive, Boosts Your MPGs

[civic_matic_00]

PLX Kiwi Tells You How to Drive, Boosts Your MPGs
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1861/69/

These days, everyone wants to know how to save gas and money. And as usual, we want to know how to do that easily. A fun new toy, the PLX Kiwi, is the solution on how you can get that much closer to being a hypermiler.

Using sophisticated software in an easy plug-n-play device, the Kiwi plugs into your car?s diagnostic port. It then registers driving habits that waste fuel and tells you what you need to do to get better mileage. Smoothness, drag, acceleration and deceleration are all taken into account, and by paying attention to what score the Kiwi gives in these areas, the average user can alter driving habits and notice a 20% improvement in their gas mileage in just a couple days.

Any car newer than 1996 can use the Kiwi, and even hybrids and alternative fuel cars can become more efficient with the handy gadget. The tiny devise is about the size of a cell phone, and consumes 2 watts of power to operate. Plus, it?s way more sleek looking than the Drivemaster Pro, and the name Kiwi is way more fun.

It looks like using this would make driving so much fun, and a great challenge to see how far you can get a gallon of gas to go. But it also seems like it?d be a little distracting. I?d be so tempted to just watch the screen to see how I?m scoring on green driving, rather than watching the road! But, when you add this to your armory of other gas-saving devices and tricks available, you?re set to be a hypermiler!

[theholycow]

That's been posted before. It looks really cool, but it costs twice as much as a ScanGauge II. Once the price gap closes a little, it should be well worth it, as I suspect it has more functionality -- and I'm almost sure people will start hacking it to run custom software and be WAY more functional.

[civic_matic_00]

Originally Posted by theholycow

That's been posted before. It looks really cool, but it costs twice as much as a ScanGauge II. Once the price gap closes a little, it should be well worth it, as I suspect it has more functionality -- and I'm almost sure people will start hacking it to run custom software and be WAY more functional.

from the demo video posted on ecogeek it has a lot more functionality comared to sancgauge. it has a function where it gives drivers a lesson on how to drive efficiently and boost mpgs.

it is more expensive than scangauge (I'd rather get a sancgauge myself), but the functions it has would simplifies hypermiling for a lot of drivers.

I don't know if it'll sell though.

[GasSavers_BEEF]

even though it has all of the neat gadgets and the "teaching" skills, it will still be a hard sell with the scangauge out there.

if there were not scangauge, then it would be the stuff. or if they came out with a kiwi light with less features but a smaller price tag.

side note: I don't use half the features on my scangauge so I doubt very seriously if I would ever use the features of the kiwi that the scangauge doesn't have.

it is still a good product and may get peoples attention because of the better screen (color) and the graphical display. the scangauge does look kind of 80's (I can say that because I am a scangauge owner, and I do love it)