Toyota launches Ecodriving campaign across Europe

Hey look, one more course to learn tips for savvy driving! Toyota has announced plans for an EcoDriving course with Global Action Plan International that will promote smart driving courses for 12,000 Europeans in Spain, Belgium, Iceland, Norway, and the UK. The program, which costs €300,000, is expected to reach 10 additional countries in 2010. According to Toyota, the course can help drivers to reduce their fuel consumptions by 10 percent without purchasing "costly devices or modify their vehicles" just "by making simple changes to every-day driving behaviors, every driver, no matter what kind of vehicle they own." Toyota estimates that knowledge from this course could mean savings of 50 million tons (metric) of CO₂ per year, which translates into €20 billion in fuel savings. No, not per family.

The program started in Belgium last year with 5,000 drivers and its estimated impact was calculated in savings of around 415,000 liters of fuel, and over 1,000 tons of CO₂ in one year. This is what 71,000 trees (based on the CO2 intake of a Japanese cedar) capture in one year.

[Source: Toyota]