ENERGY WEBSITE, THE NEW TOOL BOARD OF ALD AUTOMOTIVE LUXEMBOURG

Antonio Da Palma, an engineer with more than 25 years’ experience in the automotive industry, offers automotive technology and mobility-related services. After having worked in a number of positions for an automotive equipment manufacturer, Antonio serves as a consultant to the world of industry and the automotive trade press. As a freelance journalist for the automotive press, he has been able to try out new cars on a regular basis and share his astute analyses in his video reports and written pieces (mymobility.lu and luxgears.lu).

Can you tell us what the Energy Website is?

Energy is a new tool that helps drivers select an engine for their new car that best matches their driver profile.

This tool, which resembles a web app, was designed around key considerations that would create a composite drawing of the best-suited vehicle.

Why was this new tool created?

ALD Automotive created this application with a view to providing advice and helping car buyers to keep up with the evolving automotive industry, the growing range of new car engines, the changing consumption patterns of younger generations and government policies promoting more environmentally-friendly engines.

With the development of hybrid and electric cars or cars running on alternative fuels, more and more drivers have been wondering about which engine would suit them best. Energy Website answers these questions. This tool is a guide to the wide array of engine choices available to them when buying a new car: diesel, petrol, hybrid or electric. Today, although automotive technology is increasingly powerful, this choice depends on a range of factors linked to the use of these vehicles.

How does the Energy Website work?

We have done our best to answer these questions objectively and in an analytical manner. We had to create an algorithm with weightings for which we have identified trends. This tool should not be regarded an exact science but rather as a means to give recommendations to drivers. In some cases, the engine recommended to the driver is an obvious choice, but in other instances the personalized advice dispensed by salespeople at car dealer or ALD Automotive experts is needed to refine the choice of the vehicle’s engine.

Energy Website should be regarded as the first stage of assessment before selecting the car’s engine.

What was your contribution to this project?

Because of my experience in the industry and engine-related automotive technology, I am very familiar with each engine and with their respective advantages. My value added was to indicate the positive points of each engine.

On a long-term, do you see an upgrade for this site?

Energy Website is an excellent initiative, a good springboard to ultimately offer a more sophisticated tool to help drivers choose new cars. It is an application where, on the basis of a more comprehensive questionnaire, each driver can select the fuel the engine will use and the car best-suited to his or her driver profile.

Over the longer term, we are heading in the direction of multi-modal mobility. Developing and offering this tool is already a first step towards reflection on mobility on a more global scale and not one focused solely on the automobile. This means “identifying the best way to get around based on the ratio of time to money”.

To sum up, using the same user profile principle and each driver’s actual mileage, we are able to recommend the best-suited mobility solutions for travel, such as public transport, car-sharing, a personal car, a bicycle or a combination of several modes of transport.

Discover our comparative tests of engine :

Comparative test hybrid vs electric

Comparative test between petrol, diesel and electric