Ford Motor Company launches competition for fuel-efficiency app

Ford Motor Company is offering a cash prize to the software developer who creates the best new app for fuel efficiency, Read writes. The winning app might live on smartphones, or it might exist solely on Ford Motor Company infotainment systems.

|
David Zalubowski/AP/File
The Ford Motor Company logo shines on the grille of a 2006 Ford Escape outside the showroom of a Ford dealership in the south Denver suburb of Littleton, Colo. Ford has announced a "Personalized Fuel Efficiency App Challenge."

Ford marketing honcho Jim Farley recently gave the keynote address at the 2013 New York AutoShow. While speaking about changes in the auto industry caused by shifts in demographics (e.g. Millennials) and mindsets (e.g. connectivity), he also announced a new app contest.

That contest -- dubbed the Personalized Fuel Efficiency App Challenge -- offers a cash prize to the software developer who creates the best new app for fuel efficiency. The winning app might live on smartphones, or it might exist solely on Ford infotainment systems. According to the official contest website:

Ford Motor Company is challenging software developers to create the best mobile or web-based apps that will help customers easily access their personal fuel-economy performance data. With this data, using on-road personalized experiences, customers can share, compare and learn how to optimize their fuel usage. Developers must use data via the OpenXC platform. Winners will receive $50,000.

Farley explained the rationale for the contest in his keynote speech: 

We need to help customers understand the concept of personal fuel economy – based on their own individualized experiences – and give them tools to see, learn and act upon all the information available to know what to expect, how to improve, and even offer guidance in their shopping process.

WHY THIS, WHY NOW?

The timing of Ford's app challenge is curious for two reasons:

1. Ford is in the middle of a brouhaha concerning fuel economy ratings for its Fusion and C-Max hybrids. Ford says -- quite rightly, in fact -- that fuel economy varies more widely in hybrids than in conventional vehicles, thanks to hybrids' particularly sensitivity to weather, terrain, driving style, and other factors. Apps that draw attention to the ways in which such elements affect fuel efficiency might help prove Ford's point.

2. Whether or not Ford aims to do a little damage control with the Personalized Fuel Efficiency App Challenge, several apps already achieve the goals Ford has set out -- Automatic, for example, which we discussed just a couple of weeks ago. Hosting a competition is a great publicity move, but for Ford's purposes, wouldn't it be equally good, if not better, to collaborate with companies who are already bringing such apps to market?

Anyway, if you're a developer, and you're interested in taking a shot at Ford's $50,000 prize, you can register here beginning Wednesday, April 24.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Ford Motor Company launches competition for fuel-efficiency app
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2013/0410/Ford-Motor-Company-launches-competition-for-fuel-efficiency-app
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe