2018/06/16

Glide Assistant

Introducing the new Glide Assistant feature of Hybrid Assistant!

Glide is the desirable state where the car is running with zero power applied.
A correct alternation of Glide and usage of the petrol engine will lead to good fuel usage.
Hybrid Assistant will help you achieving a good glide, providing guidance about the accelerator pedal usage.

Hybrid Assistant assigns a score to glides, called Glide Index, ranging from 0 to 100.
100 is assigned when the glide is perfectly balanced, while lower scores accounts for how far the perfect glide point is.
The Glide Index can be used to evaluate the current glide condition, as well as giving an overall score for the whole trip, by averaging the instant values over time.
An hypothetical trip, where the car is always in perfect glide, would have a score of 100; while every deviation from glide, during the trip, would reduce that score.
Note that the final score is unaffected by distance, and glide is evaluated only if speed is greater than 20 km/h.
Parking time is also not accounted.

The Glide Assistant panel can be enabled in the Settings screen, or by tapping the EV car icon two times.

The Glide Assistant panel is composed by 2 main elements:
On the left there's a floating colored ball, while the right side contains a chart.



You can control the position of the floating ball using the accelerator pedal: keeping it inside the white circle will result in higher scores.

Every vertical bar on the chart represent the glide score for each of the previous minute.
A fuel pump icon under each bar provides a feedback about average fuel usage trend:
Red - average fuel usage has been worse than the previous minute
Yellow - average fuel usage was just the same as the previous minute
Green - average fuel usage was better that before

A continuous line plots the average index over the whole trip.

Note:
Achieving and maintaining glide requires fast reaction times, so a good adapter and a fast phone are essential for good results.
It's strongly advised to use a HUD or HUD-like placement for the phone, so you can keep your eyes on the road at all time.

Disclaimer:
Suggestions provided by Hybrid Assistant, during the usage of the Glide Assistant feature, can not account for road conditions: the driver is the only responsible for evaluating and applying them only if they do not pose any danger to driver, passengers and surrounding cars and people.

Acknowledgements:
Glide Assistant is based on a previous work by Prof. Thomas Franke, Engineering Psychology and Cognitive Ergonomics at Lübeck University.







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