FuelSave
The perfect match to logistic and raw materials transport companies and its goal is to provide a more ecological and secure way to drive trucks.
Get to know better this mobile solution made in Portugal, still in an embryonic stage but already with honours beyond frontiers, in the words of the FuelSave co-founder Luís Mendes.
On what is the Startup business based on?
FuelSave is a real-time telemetry analysis company, helping our customers increase the efficiency and safety of their truck fleet. Though we are not in the commercial stage, we have three pilots taking place in Portugal, with goods transport companies.
The trucks connected to our system have a device that gathers all the electronic signals from the vehicle, sending them to our cloud, and a tablet that sends instructions to the driver by image and voice. These instructions help the driver to adapt his or her driving to transport conditions.
Till now the response of the drivers has been very positive, changing their driving according to the suggestions sent. We save about 20% of fuel per truck. FuelSave collects a portion of the savings, if the customer does not save we do not earn.
How did the Idea come about?
For those familiar with the logistics and transportation industry, you know that fuel costs represent the largest share of operating costs; there are a number of solutions that help you optimize management and reduce this share of cost. In the case of efficient driving, there are several aftermarket devices and solutions already integrated into the vehicles that assist in driving.
In the case of light vehicles everyone knows about cruise control. Today cruise control already automatically reduces the speed on slopes in order to reduce consumption. What had not yet been addressed was the issue that the driver had to choose between driving efficiently or being on time with the transported freight, and in this industry being late is not an option.
FuelSave helps the driver to comply with his/her service while reducing his/her costs and increasing safety while driving: This is because our technology recognizes those moments during the route that one can be more conducive in the driving and compensates in others, the total time of transport remaining unchanged.
Luís Mendes, Co-Founder
What is your Mission?
To be technological world leaders in real time data analysis for driving optimization.
António Reis, Co-Founder
How do you deal with the issue of Financing?
Although we only created the company in February of this year, 2018, we were fortunate enough to be financed by several R & D funds, among them Portugal2020, which will allow us to develop all the technology to the point where we will be in the commercial phase. We also received several other awards in Portugal, such as Altice, BGI-Climate KIC. In Spain we are being accelerated by the Repsol Entrepreneurs fund. Globally, we are part of the NVidia inception program, the best acceleration program for self-managed companies.
António Fradique, Co-Founder
What is your Customer Acquisition Strategy?
We are in direct contact with our clients/pilots in this phase to accelerate the development of the technology. Aside from that, we are not yet commercial
Diego Vieira, Business Assistant
Pedro Bilou, Business Assistant
What do you expect in the future of your Startup?
FuelSave will be much more than the product we are developing now. We will be able to help several industries to make better decisions regarding transportation and mobility: They will know the safer driving routes, the ones that cause the least wear on the vehicles, the ones that generate the most value.
We will also help self-managed companies to develop their technologies to be more efficient and secure by using our data platform. FuelSave will be one of the leading data providers for the entire value chain associated with transportation and mobility.
What is the best professional advice you have received so far?
All resources are scarce. We have to allocate our time and resources where we can have more impact, either on a personal level or across the organization.
Maintaining focus is very important for an exceptional performance.