It may seem strange to devote an entire article to vehicle acceleration and braking. Maybe it isn’t normal for drivers to consider the implications of stopping and going in their cars. Regardless of how often we think about the effects of driving our cars, they are having an impact on the environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency reports that releasing carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere in large amounts may contribute to permanent changes in Earth’s climate. According to fueleconomy.gov, a typical car produces 6 to 9 tons of CO2 yearly and "highway vehicles account for 26% of U.S. CO2 emissions (1.7 billion tons each year)". Many Americans rely on their cars as their primary mode of transportation. Investing in more fuel-efficient cars or switching to public transit could help reduce CO2 emissions, but many drivers simply cannot take advantage of those options.

There is a tool available to help drivers significantly reduce emissions from their cars. New Potato Technologies is a creative design firm interested in technology projects that reduce negative human impact on the environment. In order to put an environmentally-friendly tool in the hands of the growing population of iPhone™ owners, the development team at New Potato designed MyMPG™, a fuel-saver application for iPhone™ and iPod touch®.

The basic design of MyMPG is immediately easy to understand. It teaches you how to make small changes in your driving that lead to big savings on gas. A scale on the main screen of MyMPG changes color with acceleration and braking. Inefficient driving causes MyMPG to send out a sound while the scale jumps from green to yellow to red. Efficient driving keeps the scale in the green, helping drivers learn that easing off the accelerator and brakes saves gas. MyMPG also includes a way to enter gas fill-up information at the pump, and a graph that provides details of your fuel consumption and costs.

You don’t have to be tech-savvy to understand what makes MyMPG useful. A little research through Edmunds.com or fueleconomy.gov will reveal that slower acceleration and braking can result in as much as a 35% improvement in gas mileage. To put it in more global terms, if 100,000 people used MyMPG and each saved 100 gallons of gas this year, this would translate to 10 million gallons of gas saved. Although that information might have been good to learn back in Driver’s Ed, MyMPG can help people learn how to drive to make a difference now.

MyMPG is currently available in the iTunes® App Store?. To get some more of the story, you can visit the developer’s website at new-potato.com.

MyMPG is brought to you by New Potato, an Apple Developer and a creative design firm located on the sunny shores of North Carolina. Please contact Sarah Sheffield at sarah@new-potato.com with any comments or questions about MyMPG.

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