For the rest of the world that does not use "miles" or "gallons", can ecoRoute be set to Litres per 100km?

What about other devices, such as my nuvi 880!? Any idea or word on those? or is this something you stumbled across?

Any word if this will be available with the nuvi 7x0 series?

I don't understand this driving challenge thing. I get a low score even though I drive very ecologically friendly. I coast to a stop all the time, I drive at the speed limit or less on surface streets and during my workweek commutes I always drive at around 55mph on the freeway.

I regularly get around 50mpg.

How does this driving challenge calculate things?

The 50mpg calculation is done manually (I didn't get that figure with ecoroute).

Just curious.. What kind of difference you have noticed at routes that EcoRoute makes?

The nuvi 7x0 series has just been discontinued!!

I actually question the usefulness of the feature altogether.

There's simply no way, without being wired into my car's electronics, that the Garmin can know when fuel is being used, how much fuel is being used, and so on.

It doesn't take terrain into account, freeway traffic jams, and so on.

It's a "feel-good" feature of little actual utility.

You know what they SHOULD have added? Elevation. Today's GPS receivers make 3D determination relatively easy, and there's no guesswork. The receiver can actually KNOW your elevation to within 3-10 meters, depending on resolution.

I bought the Garmin to assist with NAVIGATION, not with "economy" or "green" compliance. Elevation would help with navigation. Displaying the current local time would help with navigation.

Displaying the "estimated cost" of my current trip is a waste of screen real estate and simply doesn't help.

You want my vote? Allow the user to display elevation instead of cost. Allow the user to display current time at screens other than the menu.

Help me with my navigation. I can do my own fuel economy math.

Yeah, this ecoRoute stuff is just a gimmick. They should be using their coders' talents to add useful things back into these units.

Garmin needs to add multiple vehicle profiles.

I switch back and forth between multiple vehicles and a single profile negates the effectiveness of this program.

Also curious why the 885t doesn't get Ecoroutes, yet it gets custom detour & custom avoidance which are missing on the 7x5.

If Garmin can add EcoRoute as firmware update to 7x5 line then why can they not also create firmware update to add Custom detour & Route Avoidances to 7x5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Come on Gman, when will you have One PND that can offer all the features vs trickle some here (7x5), but trickle some others here(8x5.

It may be a gimmick, but I've been very late to the party with GPS. I am about to purchase my first one and ecoRoute was enough to tip me to the 265t over a comparable TomTom or Navigon.

Just making the option available to make people actually THINK about fuel efficiency is a good first step into perhaps changing how people think about the environment. If feedback is good, perhaps they will put more effort into looking at elevation change into determining MPG. Since the newer units are giving indications of changing elevation, I figure it's only a matter of time before someone works that into the algorithm. I say "good for Garmin" for making the jump. To tree-hugging liberals like me, I think it's good selling point (and I'm SURE Garmin knows this!)

"Estimating elevation by the use of satellite signals only is neither easy nor reliable."

Beg to differ.

"Easy" may be a stretch, but the math is now well-enough known that it's not re-inventing the wheel to figure out position in three dimensions from four or more good signals. "Reliable" is, however, already there.

I have an LT-20 (DeLorme) that I use with both the Street Atlas and Topo USA products. Granted, Topo USA has elevation in its database, but I get reasonable accuracy with Street Atlas as well, and have for years.

Granted, I've gotten a whole range of elevations for my driveway, but they've all been within three meters of what I know it ought to be.

I'm quite okay with being as much as ten meters off in elevation. I'm not using it to construct survey maps. But to know within thirty or forty feet is fine, and to know whether I'm ascending or descending is a good thing.

I can always derive my fuel economy with a gas receipt and a calculator.

I can't derive my elevation so easily. Of course, I could always pack a sextant and do it visually . . .

Nah. I'll take the three-to-ten meter margin of error.

That's the very first gps device I ever had. Forgotten all about it. Took me about an hour to find it (bright yellow shouldn't be so hard to find). Hooked it up a half hour ago, and I remember now why I hated it. Took almost 20 minutes to get a signal lock. Anyway, sitting in my driveway right now, which I already knew from the survey marker is 153.7' elevation, the Delorme started out as 128, slowly up to 146 and back down to 137', the range it stayed in for a few minutes. Since then it's gone up to 209' and back down now to the 170's. Not quite accurate IMO.

What I didn't see in this article is if the new ecoRoute also has the ability for the user to enter each fueling stop? This would be a good way for the GPS to know actual MPG of the driver by looking at the gallons put in during the refuel and the cost per gallon. If it can also track this and put it in the spreadsheet a lot of my manual calculations that I do could be eliminated. I already keep track using my trip meter/odometer for each refuel how far I went that tank, the number of gallons it took to refill it, and the cost per gallon. But I have to jot it down on a notepad and enter it when I get to my computer. If the Garmin will do that for me then I will be upgrading to a new Garmin soon. Can anyone tell me if what I am looking for is part of this ecoRoute software? If not, then is anyone at Garmin reading these comments and considering our input? Thanks.

Hmm. @gatorguy: the shortcomings of the LT-20 aside, I believe it is both possible and practical to provide elevation.

There are plenty of consumer-class GPS gadgets out there that provide usable elevation readings.

I see no reason why it can't be added as an optional readout on the Garmin Nuvi.

That, and the current time, which currently is only displayed at the menu.

I also agree with Longsnowsm above that, if you're going to provide fuel economy figures, it makes sense to accept actual tank fill values. This, of course, assumes that the gadget is always on when the car is running. Mine pretty much is.

~~

The elevation reports are usable, depending on what they're being used for. Certainly not suitable for aviation or surveying. Took the time this morning for a test, setting up 4 of my devices and letting them sit for 10 minutes. My 760 initially showed 150' elevation, but over the next minute steadily increased to 183-184'. Gradually over the next 9 minutes it settled in at 174-176'. Not bad, and locked on 9 sats. While writing this, went out and turned on the 760 again. This time it stayed at about 124-125' for the first 30 seconds, then steadily rose to 191' until settling at 172-175' after about 3 minutes. 10 sats locked now, with reported accuracy of 11.2'. My Navigon 7200 started at 34', rose to 44-46', holding pretty steady for the entire 10 minutes. 7 sats locked. 2nd test, started out at 19', dropped to -3', then rose to 71' over the next minute, until settling in at 64-65'. 8 sats locked. My GPSMap76 took 2 minutes of the 10 to get sufficient lock, then showed 130', rising to 202', then steadily down to about 128', but rising/falling by 2-6' every few seconds. The eventual range settled in at 138-188 and not holding any particular reading for more than a few seconds. Sats locked 5. 2nd test had lock right away on 4 birds, initially reporting 209', but then dropping steadily to 121' before going back up to 224'. After that it stayed in a range of 141' to 199', holding from 5-7 sats. Noted the reported accuracy on second test (3D sat mode) stayed between 17.3 and 20'. The TomTom 930 reports no elevation. It is available if you choose to use a 3rd party program like TYRE that supports it. I don't use it. All tests were done under clear skies, level ground, less than 100' from the survey marker showing 153.7'. IMO, elevation reports on these consumer-level navigators are useful only as a rough approximation. While my reported horizontal accuracy only varied by 2 or three feet, the elevation reports quite obviously varied by much, much more than that.

GPS elevation can be near-useless in some areas, like Florida, where the vast majority of the state is at sea level! "A couple of meters" is the difference between being underwater and being above it. Sitting at 8' elevation right now from the surveys. Not even going to bother asking the GPS where it thinks I am. The last time it said I was -23 ft.

I just purchased a Nuvi 205 and have noticed that it does NOT calculate Fuel Cost accurately. No matter what the numbers are, it seems to underreport fuel cost by 25%. Before testing this feature, I did update the software to the latest version, v.5.30.

Fuel Cost is shown when you set a Where To address, a little white box pops out to the left of the Go button named "Route Info". At the bottom of this white box is "Fuel Cost". Basically the Nuvi calculates what the fuel cost is to travel that distance.

For example, I've setup the vehicle at 16mpg for both city & highway, $2.60 per gallon. For an 8.6 mile trip, the Nuvi reports a cost of $1.05. That is not correct because when we do the math, (8.6/16) X 2.60 = $1.40 is the correct cost.

I've tried all different ranges of numbers up to 60mpg, $7 per gallon, and except in a few cases where it reported rediculously innacurate fuel cost such as $.03 for a 21 mile trip, it seems to consistently underreport by 25%.

I also calibrated the fuel mileage to various numbers but it seems to have no effect on Route Info Fuel Cost.

I am curious to find out if anyone else is experiencing this? I cannot imagine this being correct. It seems to be a software glitch.

quote
"Makes sense really - hard to know the exact consumption unless the GPS knows how fast you actually drove."

I beg to differ; It makes NO sense at all. The numbers are there - 16mpg city, 16mpg hwy, and $2.60 per gallon fuel cost. It is a simple calculation.

It is a software glitch as far as I am concerned. Here is what Garmin said about it when I contacted them yesterday:

Dear,

Thank you for contacting Garmin International. At this time, I have not
heard anything on there being an issue with this feature. However, I
will forward the information on and if there is an error, it will more
than likely be fixed with a future software update. Please let me know
if there is anything else I may assist you with.

With Best Regards,

Matt H
Product Support Specialist

Garmin International
913-397-8200
800-800-1020
913-440-8280 (fax) Att: Matt H
www.garmin.com

This is what Garmin wrote back to me:

Dear,

Thank you for contacting Garmin International.

I reported this and was informed that there is not a glitch in the
ecoRoute program that we were able to locate. ecoRoute calculates fuel
cost on more than just a simple equation using the miles traveled, fuel
cost reported, and estimated gallons used on the trip. Because our map
data also includes information on basic road types and speed limits,
ecoRoute can also use this information to estimate fuel cost. Setting
the route preference to "Less Fuel" may yield more miles traveled, but
you'll typically see the fuel cost decrease. One location I used as an
example was a Krispy Kreme roughly 200 miles from here. With the
default "faster time" setting, the unit provides me with an estimated
175.2 mile trip with a total fuel cost of $34.49. When I change the
navigation setting to "less fuel," the traveled miles increases to 205.8
while the fuel cost drops over $5 to $29.17. If the unit used a simple
mathematical equation that did not account for probable mpg
fluctuations, then the Less Fuel option should yield FEWER miles
traveled.

Because mpg will increase and typically reach a peak between 45-55 mph,
the unit will do what it can to route you via roads with these speed
limits to maximize mileage. The downside is that the unit cannot take
stop-and-start traffic into consideration, nor will it be able to
estimate beforehand based on your typical driving speed, if that is
faster or slower than the posted speed limit. I hope this helps to
understand the way that ecoRoute calculates not just the fuel costs but
also the routes it provides when set to "less fuel."

With Best Regards,

Joshua K
Product Support Specialist
2nd Shift Automotive Team
Garmin International
913-397-8200
800-800-1020
913-440-8280 (fax) Att: Joshua K
www.garmin.com

So I wrote back:
Thank you Joshua for that very detailed analysis and explanation.

I clearly see now how the "Less Fuel" functionality works. Eventhough the enduser types in city mpg and hwy mpg, it is likely that mpg increases to an amount higher than hwy mpg during that more efficient driving speed between 45 and 55. So that makes sense.

However, my Nuvi 205 is set to Faster Time, not "Less Fuel". But now that I think about it, the speed limits to the 8.6 mile destination I had been using as a test were in the 35-55 mph range. Interesting. The Nuvi must have known that and accomodated for the probably higher mpg.

I will do some more experimenting but at this time it does seems that the Fuel Cost logic in the Nuvi makes sense.

Thank again for your explanation. I would highly recommend you ammend user manuals for all Eco Route GPSs to include this explanation. Had I come across this in my user manual, it would have saved all of us alot of time.

One other question. You said:
" The downside is that the unit cannot take
stop-and-start traffic into consideration... "

How about after the trip has completed...does the Nuvi 205 see all of the slow-downs and speed-ups and subsequently reflect that in additional fuel cost?

Sincerely,

And Garmin wrote back:

Dear ,

Thank you for contacting Garmin International. I apologize, currently it does not take that information into consideration.


With Best Regards,

Michael C

PRoduct Support Specialist

Garmin International

913-397-8200

800-800-1020

913-440-8280 (fax) Att: Michael C

www.garmin.com