Star Bamboo Singapore

Every car owner I know is moaning about rising petrol costs.

It’s actually good news in a perverse way. I’m heartened that people are finally seeing the impact of their behaviour on the environment. I guess it’s gotta hurt before we wake up our idea.

Whenever we drive, we are using up precious resources and polluting the air. Now that petrol is so expensive, reducing the amount we use is good for both the environment and our wallets.

I really love cars and the feeling of freedom when I drive, but sad to say, it’s not environmentally sustainable.

So here are 2 gadgets I’ve installed in my car to help decrease my petrol usage:

1) GPS navigation system (Garmin)

The device at the upper left corner is a GPS navigation system by Garmin, the Nuvi 660.

I got it shipped over from USA using the vPost service, and used a free map of Singapore and Malaysia from Malsingmaps. Malsingmaps is an online community of GPS enthusiasts who have painstakingly crafted their own map of Singapore and Malaysia, and the quality is superior to many commercially available maps.

It only cost me about S$540, much cheaper than the S$680 I would have to pay for a similar unit at the shops here.

This little baby will calculate the optimal route for your trip. No more wandering around lost because you missed that one crucial turning and have no idea where to go next.

Believe me, this really saved me a lot of time and petrol.

2) Digital gauge (Scangauge II)

Now, turn your attention to the gauge at the bottom right corner.

This is the Scangauge II digital scan, which plugs directly into your car’s computer. Most modern cars after 1996 would have the appropriate plug near the steering column.

I got it for around S$300 from TheGadgetHome. Good price, great service.

You can get a lot of useful information from this. For example on my unit, I’ve configured it to show:

• LHK: instantaneous fuel consumption (litres per hundred kilometers)
• AVC: average fuel consumption (litres per hundred kilometers)
• BHP: horsepower
• KPH: current speed (kilometers per hour)

So how does this help to reduce my petrol costs?

My car doesn’t have a trip computer nor fuel consumption gauge. So to get an idea of the fuel economy, I have to calculate the distance travelled over a tank and divide it over the amount of petrol at the next top-up.

While this tells me the average fuel consumption, I have no idea what I was doing right. With Scangauge II, I get instant feedback.

Step on the throttle too hard, and the LHK shoots up. Lift off and cruise, and it drops down to zero.

You see 9999 in the photo above, that’s because the engine is left running while the car was stationary. That’s right, I was simply wasting fuel. So the right thing to do is turn the engine off.

I learn very quickly the optimal way of driving that would use the least amount of fuel.

1. Accelerate quickly and smoothly to cruising speed of 50 to 90 km/h.
2. Anticipate the traffic in front. Lift off the throttle when approaching red lights or slowing traffic.

I can even configure it to show me the cost of petrol I’m burning up. Press the pedal to the metal.. oops! There goes $0.24 down the drain!

After installing the ScangaugeII, my fuel economy has improved by over 10%. With the cost of petrol at an all-time high of over S$2 per litre, my petrol costs is about S$500 per month.

This means I’m saving about S$50 per month, and I’ll recoup my investment in half a year. Not bad.

Another fun nugget of info I got is that I rarely exceed 60bhp for the horsepower. My car’s engine is rated at a maximum of 230bhp, but I’m only using about a quarter of it.

The remaining horses are simply left unused in the stable. What a waste of petrol.

When it’s time to change the car, I’ll get a more fuel efficient model, either a petrol-electric hybrid or a diesel car.

Do check these devices out, I hope they work as well for you as they do for me.

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The big news for car lovers in Singapore was the announcement that the Singapore Government will be reducing the annual tax on Euro IV diesel passenger cars from July 2008.

Currently, the diesel tax is four times the annual road tax of a petrol car with an equivalent engine capacity. But, from July 1 2008, the formula is changed to $1.25 per cubic cm of the car’s engine displacement.

That works out to be $2,500 for a 2,000cc car, down from $4,856 now, or a 49% cut.

The change in the diesel tax formula is probably to pre-empt a 15% reduction in road tax come July 2008. By un-pegging the diesel tax from the road tax, the Government will have greater room to manipulate the demand for diesel passenger cars.

If the intention of the tax cut is to encourage greater use of diesel vehicles, then it obviously doesn’t go far enough. Some analysts estimated that one would need to drive 70,000km per year just to offset this tax.

The signs are that the Government is waiting for Euro V vehicles to be more widely available after 2009.

I think it’s rather unfortunate. Diesel cars have lower CO2 emissions, better acceleration, and superior fuel economy. Why wait until 2010?

If pollution is a concern, then the number of old Euro II diesel commercial goods vehicles and taxis plying Singapore’s roads should be much greater cause for concern.

Once again, as with the incentives for hybrid cars, it’s a matter of “too little, too slow”.

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I love cars.

So do 4.5 million other Singaporeans.

The problem is that there is limited land in Singapore. So there are various measures in place to limit the number of cars on the road, such as the COE car ownership quota system and high car taxes.

The road tax is calculated based on the engine capacity of the vehicle, and designed to encourage small cars especially 1600cc and below.

I don’t quite agree with this but at least it makes sense: small-engined cars are, as a rule of thumb, more fuel-efficient than those fitted with thumping V8 powerplants.

Singapore is a city-state, so we spend most of our time in start-stop traffic. This is exactly the scenario that hybrid cars are designed for.

Hybrid cars, such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid, have a conventional petrol and an electric motor. At low speeds, they are powered solely by the electric motor. The petrol engine only kicks in at higher speeds, making them eminently ideal for urban driving.

So why is Singapore discouraging the ownership of hybrid cars?

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