What is the Kiwi?
The Kiwi is a vehicle information device that displays real-time fuel mileage data, plus a whole lot more. It’s a great little tool that can help you fine-tune and tweak your driving skills and style so that you can consistently get the best fuel economy that your vehicle can deliver. Though most new vehicles have a built-in fuel consumption display (FCD), they don’t offer a lot of feedback (usually instantaneous and cumulative fuel mileage but that’s about it). If you’ve got a “lead foot” and find your fuel gauge needle consistently heading toward the E at an astonishing rate, you’ll find a real friend in the Kiwi. The combination of an easy to use interface and friendly display makes a game out of challenging yourself to keep improving your score. In no time you’ll be retrained—leaving behind those lurch-and-jerk-stab-the-throttle bad habits—and applying smooth and easy movements of the go-pedal. A real added bonus is that the smooth and attentive kind of driving promoted by Kiwi not only saves fuel, but it actually makes you a more aware and safer driver.
Installation
It’s a snap really, literally plug-and-play. Locate the OBD-II connector (this is the Onboard Diagnostics port that service shops use to hook up their test equipment) under the dashboard, and plug-in the Kiwi’s connector cable. The more challenging part of installation is routing and concealing the cable, and finding a suitable and relatively direct-line-of-sight mounting place for the display. The package contents consist of a bracket, double-sided tape and some zip ties—but a little creativity is helpful in making a functional and attractive presentation. And of course, an instruction manual is supplied to learn all of the many controls and functions available on the Kiwi.
Limitations
Unfortunately, Kiwi works only on 1996 and newer vehicles. The device uses the OBD-II standards communication port that does not exist on prior year models (pre ‘96, manufacturers used their own individual proprietary OBD systems with differing connecting devices and output signals).
Driving with the Kiwi
This is the where the fun and games begin. Though we are gentle and economy minded drivers to begin with (witness our eco-driving and hypermiling articles), we do enjoy a little challenge to improve our skills. So we installed the Kiwi in our 2008 Nissan Altima Hybrid and started our test run in the Kiwi MPG mode just to see how this compared to our onboard fuel consumption display. As expected, the two gauges gave nearly identical readings (within a tenth or two), so we were certain the Kiwi was communicating clearly with the OBD system and we were on our way.
A nice feature on the Kiwi that is not available on our Altima’s factory FCD is a MPG summary that is an at-this-very-moment snapshot of the current trip. A particularly motivating piece of information from this display is dollars saved. The Kiwi computes this number from the cost per gallon of fuel that can be entered via the set-up menu.
Our first test of the Kiwi (and ourselves) was the Smoothness Lesson 1, one of the many Drive Green lessons that are part of the installed Kiwi software package. The goal here is to drive as smoothly as possible (while flowing nicely with traffic and obeying all signs) for 3 minutes while the Kiwi monitors all manner of throttle position, engine load, RPMs, etc., and displays a how-you-are-doing-so-far screen. We behaved, and after our allotted time passed, we were presented with a happy little “You Passed” screen. Let us say that lesson one is fairly easy, but as we progressed on through subsequent lessons, it became more and more difficult to pass—and that, of course, is the goal. Doing these lessons with regularity will help you become a steadily more efficient driver. Another thing we really like are the handy little tips that appear before each lesson is started. Some are painfully obvious, but others are that’s-a-really-good-idea clever.
After the Trip
After completing a handful of Drive Green lessons, we completed our trip and entered the logs menu to take a peek at our MPG trend up to that point. A final synopsis (similar to the Kiwi MPG screen) was automatically displayed in the Trip Summary screen when the vehicle was turned off. So how'd we do? Not bad … pretty good actually, and we are now motivated even more to step-our-game-up and secure a few more of those “You Passed” trophies. We really do like the Kiwi—its bounty of feedback is both informative and entertaining—and the Drive Green lessons are especially helpful, but all of this data doesn’t come cheap. The Kiwi retails for about $300 (U.S). Is it worth that price? That depends on lots of factors, but used religiously and as designed, the Kiwi will absolutely make you a more efficient and fuel-saving driver. After that, it’s all about payback period. The more economically you drive, naturally the quicker the Kiwi pays for itself. Curiosity piqued? Interested in a Kiwi? Head over to Juicedhybrid.com to place an order.
Kiwi Features
The Kiwi does more than just teach you how to drive efficiently with tons of feedback, it also has a “Check Engine” mode that can read and display trouble codes set by the vehicle’s OBD system. And for those true techno geeks among us, the Kiwi can display up to five screens worth of vehicle information—from engine timing to catalytic converter temperature.
- Kiwi Score
- MPG Mode
- Dollars/Fuel Saved Information
- Drive Green Lessons
- Long Term Trends Log
- Fun Animation Mode
- Engine Check Mode