Need to find gas, fast and cheap? Service offers help

The system will offer voice-navigated driving cues.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Tracking down a gas station -- especially a cheap one -- while running on fumes can be a scramble.
But soon hunting for a bargain at the pump will be as easy as flipping open your cell phone.
Televigation, a Sunnyvale, Calif., wireless technology firm, launched a service this past week that will help motorists find the cheapest gas in town using GPS-enabled cell phones. The service can also sort for your favorite brand, such as Union 76, and will list the closest dealers within a five-mile radius of a driver's location.
This "fuel finder" is considered a first attempt by service providers to use wireless tracking programs to give consumers a leg up on the latest gas crunch.
Taking advantage
"TeleNav is trying to take advantage of a hot button issue -- gas," said Ken Hyers, a senior analyst for In-Stat/MDR, a firm in Scottsdale, Ariz., that tracks trends in the wireless industry.
Hyers said the gee-whiz technology is a clever marketing gimmick: It gives America's 170 million cell-phone carriers a glimpse of how location tracking devices can solve real-time worries -- higher gas prices.
"It's tough to get people to use something completely new, but if location-based services can make it more attractive, then more people might use it," said Clint Wheelock, director of wireless research at In-Stat.
The fuel finder will work similar to other GPS navigation tools, offering voice-automated driving cues for drivers seeking a map to the nearest and least expensive gas stations.
The service will be bundled with Televigation's existing $10-a-month TeleNav navigation tool, which competes against other wireless tracking software -- including AtlasBook by Networks in Motion in Irvine, Calif.
It relies on daily electronic data collected from credit card transactions from a majority of the nation's gas stations, or 75,000, said Sal Dhanani, senior marketing director at the firm.
The firm said most of Orange County's 731 gas stations are expected to participate.
"The idea is that the stations are all spread out, so you'll find lots in Orange County," Dhanani said.
That might make the service more appealing to consumers than Internet gas-tracking Web sites, which aren't available when your gas gauge is dangling below empty. Also, many sites can be outdated or unreliable, Hyers said.
"The great thing about (fuel finder) is the data is dead accurate, and you don't have the participants screwing up the data," he said.
Limits
Still, the service is limited.
Televigation works only with Nextel carriers. Both companies could not offer any data on how many potential cell-phone customers would benefit from the service. Also, Nextel spokesman Alfredo Padilla said it's unclear how many of the company's 1.4 million subscribers use GPS-enabled phones.
Although increasingly more mobile phones are embedded with location-tracking technology, industry experts say that service is driven mostly by a government mandate to make wireless 911 calls easier to track -- not consumer demand.
"It is truly a very emerging market, and, in my mind, this service won't be heavily used," said Hyers.
Even Televigation has no idea how the gas finder will fly.
The company's basic services help tech-savvy cell-phone users navigate busy roads, locate favorite restaurants and give parents the ability to find wayward teens.
Whether customers are ready to embrace the "add-on" fuel finder feature -- free for a limited time -- is unclear, especially since gas prices have cooled off for the summer.