How far can we get with eco driving tech?

Individual, car-based mobility contributes significantly to worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Driving style accounts for up to 30% of fuel consumption and manufacturers have implemented technologies such as energy-efficient eco driving modes to reduce emissions. Here we report evidence from a field experiment with battery-electric vehicles. Two behavioral interventions, changing the mode's default to on and informing drivers about the frequency of other people's usage of the mode, i.e. providing a descriptive social norm, successfully increased eco mode usage. However, the cars' acceleration and energy consumption remained unaffected due to a behavioral rebound, and were instead predicted by a situational factor, trip distance. While behavioral in-terventions proved effective, the results suggest that technological interventions aiming to reduce the environ-mental impacts might focus more strongly on alterations of situational rather than dispositional factors of people or cars.

Automated summary

The study found that behavioral interventions, such as changing default modes and providing social norms, can increase the usage of eco driving mode in electric vehicles. However, the acceleration and energy consumption of the cars were not affected by the interventions, but were influenced by trip distance. The results suggest that technological interventions aiming to reduce environmental impacts should focus more on situational factors rather than dispositional factors of people or cars.