Ford Web Summit Winner: Drive Efficient

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SYNC3_billboard_2blankAt the SYNC AppLink Developer Challenge Dublin, Ford Motor Company offered developers a chance to compete in a Ford SYNC, hackathon with €75,000 prize money and the opportunity to develop new apps with Ford.

Drive Efficient is the winner of the SYNC AppLink Developer Challenge Dublin. Drive Efficient gives visual and audio advice to get better gas mileage. Drive Efficient monitors how drivers are revving up engines and if the engine’s torque is used efficiently. Users are alerted if the app finds that fuel consumption could be improved, as well as verbal and visual guidance to improve driving.

Ford’s SYNC with AppLink enables drivers to voice-control apps while keeping their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel.
Created by a team from German urban mobility experts Unu, the winning app design can help people drive more fuel efficiently by monitoring whether they are over- or under-revving the engine, and whether they are making best use of the engine’s torque.
The app provides verbal and visual feedback to encourage good driving behavior and warn when fuel consumption could be improved.

Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford at the event called on the automotive industry and tech companies large and small to work together to transform urban mobility and improve lives in today’s connected world, during a live-streamed interview with Bloomberg’s Caroline Hyde on the  at Web Summit.Ford emphasized that collaboration between start-ups, entrepreneurs, inventors, and technology companies will be critical in developing new solutions for tomorrow’s biggest transportation challenges.

“We were a car and a truck company and we’ve redefined ourselves as a mobility company. We have to imagine a future not just as makers of cars but as transportation providers,” said Ford. “The role for us as a company is to improve the lives of our customers and that’s what we are thinking about all the time. And it’s going to take partnerships with big tech companies as well as start ups.”

The SYNC AppLink Developer Challenge Dublin offered €75,000 prize money in total, and Ford also partnered with leading advisory firm WeiserMazars to offer services worth up to €25,000 for winning entrants.

At Web Summit Ford announced at three new voice controlled apps for Ford SYNC with AppLink: Ministry of Sound, Wetter.de and n-tv. Ministry of Sound enables drivers to listen to live radio and genre channels from the world’s biggest independent music company. Ford collaborated with Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland to develop new information-based apps for the German market, including the Wetter.de weather app and the news app n-tv.