Eco Assist

Why it’s important to your customers:

All 2012 CR-V models come with Eco Assist: a driver feedback function that uses an innovative speedometer display with changing background colours to provide real-time guidance to the driver on achieving higher fuel efficiency.

Your customer’s will like it because it optimizes the vehicles performance and maximizes fuel efficiency.

What to Say:

What’s so great about Eco Assist? Here’s what you can say:

• Easy to initiate.
• Optimizes vehicle performance.
• Improves fuel efficiency.

What to Show:

Sometimes customers want to see or feel it for themselves. Here are a few tips to help them visualize how it works:

• Show them the Eco Assist and Econ mode diagram.
• Turn on the car and have the customer press the Econ button. Point out the change in the lighting while explaining that this indicates that Eco Assist has been engaged.
• Tell a story: describe to the customer a situation where Eco Assist would benefit the customer. Something like they are on a long drive on a hot day with the air conditioning and cruise control on. Fuel consumption is high and they are worried about engine performance. Pressing Eco Assist will optimize both the air conditioning and the cruise control systems and will alter the throttle system to optimize engine performance and fuel efficiency.

How it Works:

Pressing an ECON button on the left side of the dashboard alters the Drive-by-Wire throttle system response curve in the range from about 10 percent of pedal movement to 80 percent. With less gain, the throttle opening in this range increases more gradually to reduce a potentially excessive peak input for better fuel efficiency.

Selecting ECON also alters the operation of the cruise control system and the air conditioning system, allowing for slightly increased variances with the set speed or the set temperature in order to conserve fuel whenever possible.

When Eco Assist is activated, the ambient light surrounding the speedometer changes from white to green to indicate fuel efficient driving in an intuitive and visual manner. This is a change from the Civic’s Eco Assist system which ranged from Blue, Blue-Green, and Green.

Thinking of your response:

How do you respond to a customer whose key purchase reasons surround Fuel Economy? Think about how you would respond to him or her? Write your answers down. Say them out loud. Practice often.

Customer Scenario

Agnes Nevin is a 40-year-old investment banker. She lives about 50 km outside the city where she works, so needs a vehicle that will be fuel efficient and comfortable for the daily commute. It is also important that she keep in touch with clients and the office while in transit.

In her spare time, Agnes travels to dog trials with her two border collies. As well as the dog crates, she needs to be able to carry a folding chair, a small overnight bag, dog food, and other paraphernalia. Some of the events are in fairly remote locations, so she wants a safe and reliable vehicle that can handle dirt roads and bad weather and that comes with GPS.