Bosch Active Gas Pedal – the accelerator pedal becomes safety device and fuel saver

What if the accelerator pedal, instead of just sending our command for fuel to the car’s engine, can become a safety device and fuel saver?  It can.  The Bosch Active Gas Pedal was invented.

The American term for accelerator pedal or throttle pedal is gas pedal, hence the name Active “Gas” Pedal.

The Bosch Active Gas Pedal is a new innovation in driver assistance

The accelerator pedal… in all the years of stepping on it, the only technological advance has been the change-over from a physical cable and mechanical linkage to an electronic throttle sensor.

The clutch pedal has, in many cars, been taken away for the automated manual gearbox, while the brake pedal has seen advances in giving a pulsing feedback when the ABS brakes are triggered… but no foot feedback of the throttle pedal?

Bosch, inventor and producer of a very long list of car tech items like said ABS and electronic stability control, has often-unseen parts factory-fitted in a large portion of cars produced, playing a big role in today’s vehicle engine and safety advances.

Bosch now showed their Active Gas Pedal – a smart accelerator pedal which can give the driver feedback for various driver-assistance functions.  Apart from just doing the 1 job of telling the engine management to send fuel to the engine, it can now do knocking, vibration or counter-pressure (pushing against the driver’s right foot) depending on the message the pedal needs to send to the driver.

The Bosch Active Gas Pedal can warn the driver of danger, for increased safety

The pedal on the right now becomes a safety device.  Huh?  The Bosch Active Gas Pedal can alert the driver of potentially dangerous driving situations – coupled with the car’s navigation system or road-sign detecting cameras (many cars have these now) the innovative pedal will give the driver a haptic warning signal (similar to the haptic feedback we are used to feeling as a vibration when using certain functions of our smartphones or smart watches).  This haptic warning signal will be sent when approaching a bend at too high a speed, for instance.

The navigation and road-sign detecting cars also include speed limit information, so when exceeding a speed limit, the driver can be alerted to slow down through the usual go-faster pedal.

Paired with the modern car’s built-in collision avoidance systems, the Bosch Active Gas Pedal can create a pedal signal to warn the driver to not accelerate any further.  Practical safety applications include warnings of unexpected traffic congestion up ahead – if there is slow traffic or an accident is detected on the road ahead, the pedal can send the driver an early warning.

How is the Bosch Active Gas Pedal a throttle pedal that can save fuel?

As a driver is to a large extent responsible for a vehicle’s rate of fuel consumption, car makers started introducing cars with a driver-selectable Eco mode switch, which electronically limits the driver’s right-foot input, reducing fuel injection demands, thereby saving fuel. 

With Bosch Active Gas Pedal, a gentle vibration in the accelerator/throttle pedal informs the driver that the current pedal input is not economical.

As an advance to the optimal gearshift indicator in the instrument cluster, found in modern manual gearbox cars (or some automatic cars with manual gear override function) which shows the driver when it is advisable to change gear up or down for best efficiency, the new smart pedal can also give a palpable indication of the best time to shift gear.

We know the expression “lead foot” – this device will now help those of us who are lead-foot drivers to save some fuel and harmful emissions.  In tests, the Bosch Active Gas Pedal reduces fuel consumption and emissions by as much as 7 percent.

A detailed web-special on the connected Bosch Active Gas Pedal can be seen at www.bosch-gaspedal.com