Promoting Energy-Efficient Driving Using Associative Graphical Displays: Can a Cup of Coffee Encourage You to Drive More Smoothly?

Substantial energy savings during the use phase of internal-combustion and electric automobiles can be achieved by increasing eco-driving behavior, particularly reduced acceleration and braking. However, motivating widespread adoption of this behavior is challenging, with obstacles including incompatibility with drivers’ values and priorities, and disassociation between drivers’ actions and observable consequences. Efforts focused on informational approaches, e.g., training programs and educational campaigns, are both difficult to scale up and largely ineffective, with drivers reluctant to make long-term changes. Alternatively, behavior can be influenced by redesigning the context within which the behavior occurs. Such an intervention must be effective across demographics and underlying behaviors to achieve ubiquity. The current study investigates the perceived effect on driving style of a simple graphical dashboard display depicting an animated coffee cup. This display incorporates associative mental models and contextual relevance to increase the salience of inefficient vehicle movements and nudge drivers to adopt a smoother driving style. An online Amazon-Mechanical-Turk survey with 92 participants revealed a significant preference for the coffee cup over two other displays when controlling for demographic variables. This result offers preliminary evidence suggesting that greater success at promoting eco-driving may be achieved by using a behavioral nudge.