This is a design for a speedometer that shows how much money is being saved by cycling instead of driving. As well as showing a healthy, positive money value that only increases with every journey, ‘ECOspeedo’ can also show how many tonnes of CO2 have been spared from the environment. This is on a per journey or all-time basis.
The ECOspeedo figure for ‘money saved’ always goes up. Unlike speed, average speed and time readouts, ‘money saved’ is rarely going to be bad for the morale.
The ECOspeedo is designed to be easy to setup. It needs the correct time, bike wheel-size and kmh/mph option chosen. Similar small-button-fiddling is then required to enter the price of fuel, and the fuel economy and emissions figures for the car ‘left behind’.
Fortunately, accurate details can be quickly located on department of transport websites – just select the car by make, model, engine size and year and you get the figures. Setup takes five to ten minutes including the time to install the wheel magnet and sensor kit.
When fuel prices rise the ECOspeedo can be adjusted accordingly. This price change applies to the new miles and is not applied retrospectively. Adjustments to the fuel economy numbers can be similarly made, hopefully to result in accurate long-term readouts.
The ECOspeedo provides approximate figures derived from simple algorithms. These do not know when the bike is making light work of congested traffic, the insurance group of the replaced car or anything about hill gradients. If payments for the car, depreciation, insurance and repairs are considered then the money saved is far greater than the fuel only figure of ECOspeedo.
Some people may want to monetize their readouts from the ECOspeedo, purchasing toys to the figure ‘saved by bike’. Parents could make pocket money depend on ECOspeedo readouts and workplace Bike-2-Work initiatives could pay what the ECOspeedo says.
This is one accessory that has novelty, is practical, suits any bike and can be appreciated by cyclists of all ages. It could become an envy worthy, gift favourite. Who doesn’t want to know how much they have saved by cycling instead of driving?
There is a development cost for ECOspeedo, however manufacture costs are the same. Only the LCD appears different - the same amount of buttons are in the same form-factor.
A website could help with car data and counting ‘carbon credits’ en-masse.