Executive Summary
This report provides an assessment of the viability, prospective profitability, technical evaluation, expenses and design development of the real time fuel efficiency tracking device. The concept allows consumers to view data on current drive techniques in terms of fuel efficiency and compare it to past results. This allows consumers to change driving habits or patters in turn increasing their fuel efficiency.
The report further finds that in wake of rising fuel costs, and the current economical landscape, commuters look to reduce fuel costs by increasing fuel efficiency of commutes. Currently only two major rival products exist in this market, and this product this product differentiates from the rival products through its data storage capabilities and cheaper cost.
Furthermore, the rival company exists predominantly in the United States of America, and hence are not readily available in Australia which essentially introduces this product into an open market with no competitors.
The report also expands on the production costs of the device to be implemented, of which the manufacturing cost is $140AUD, taking into account various factors. Other costs where then considered such as development, maintenance, overhead costs, staffing and management etc raising the cost to $155 - $160AUD. This is a $20 advantage over competitive pricing.
The technical implementation of the device was also contained, explaining the choices of components selected, comparing and contrasting uses and matching them with the design requirements. Further, the report evaluates the risk of each component of the project evaluated from experience and technical knowledge.
The project is managed by splitting each individual component, into sections, and divided among the design engineers as follows:
Project generation and selection : 29/07/14 – 11/08/14
High level design : 12/08/14 – 15/08/14
Technical Implementation : 16/08/14 – 30/09/14
Prototype Development : 01/10/10 – 14/10/14
Prototype testing : 15/10/14 – 28/10/14
Introduction
Problem Statement:
The rising cost of vehicle fuels is placing an increasing monetary burden on private commuters globally. As such market demand for highly fuel efficient vehicles is increasing. However, many people remain unaware of fuel efficient driving techniques. We aim to design a portable product which encourages the use of fuel efficiency driving techniques by showing drivers their fuel efficiency in real time. The product will also store this data allowing the driver to review it at their issue.
The purpose of this report is to present a design for a real-time fuel efficiency tracking device which would allow commuters to practice and develop fuel-efficient driving techniques.
The device will also store logs of this data at the end of each trip. Allowing the user to review and compare the effectiveness of their fuel efficient driving techniques at their leisure.
The proposed market segment consists of:
Hypermilers – An enthusiast group who develop, practice and compare the effectiveness of various fuel efficient driving techniques.
Fuel conscious drivers – Current drivers of fossil fuel based vehicles who want to minimise their fuel expenditure by learning fuel efficient driving techniques.
Competing products consist primarily of the Scangauge-II and Ultragauge systems. Both of these products show similar real time statistics of fuel efficiency however they provide no data storage options. Meaning that detailed fuel efficiency comparisons still require the user to manually enter data into an external computer program or handwrite data to a notebook at the completion of each trip.
The remainder of this report will provide a detailed product concept, specifics of the technical implementation of the product, key advertising points for the product and market analysis. A rudimentary analysis of manufacturing cost will also be provided, as well as a development plan
