The price of gas may have gone down, but more people are out of work – so incidences of gas theft are probably as common now as they were a year ago, when gas was $4 a gallon in the US (and $7+ in Israel!). According to insurance industry officials, about 4% of the diesel fuel on tanker trucks is stolen every year. I’m sure it’s at least as bad elsewhere.

To prevent such theft, Israel’s Ituran (they have an American site as well), which makes vehicle theft tracking systems, among other things, has come out with a gas-tracking system! According to the company, the device, developed at a cost of about $100,000, was “designed to provide an electronic solution to prevent thieves from stealing fuel, warning them off while they are in the act, without causing any potential risk” of fire or explosion in the gas tank (apparently it was an issue from an engineering point of view, to place an electronic detector next to or in the gas tank).

One side of the device is active only when the vehicle is turned off, and its sensors read the amount of fuel in the tank; the other side is connected to the vehicle’s theft alert system. If the fuel level begins to go down while the vehicle is parked, the warning system tracks down the owner – just like it would if the vehicle were being stolen. The device can also be programmed to check fuel levels while the vehicle is turned on ensuring that the fuel depletion rate is correct (in the case of trucks, the company says, that’s about 1 liter of diesel fuel every two or three kilometers). Why? Because apparently lots of drivers are in on this fuel theft scam – instead of “gassing up” at a service station, they “gas out” at secret, hidden gas tanks at the side of roads, and sell the fuel later!

According to Ituran’s figures, a company with a fleet with 15 trucks, each of which loses 20-30 liters of fuel a week to “shrinkage,” can save up to 3 million shekels a year ($750,000!). Even assuming the cost of fuel in Israel is double, it’s still a great investment for U.S. fleets as well.

Why read a flat map, when you can luxuriate in a 3D GPS-style rendering of exactly where you are on the highway – for FREE! Israeli company 3DVU (I interviewed the CEO, Isaac Levanon, a couple of years ago) has a new product called Way2Go,

“the first and only personalized Web-to-Mobile route planner giving real-time turn-by-turn, GPS tracking, voice and text guidance navigation for PC and mobile phones with full 3D aerial photography and real terrain elevation of entire countries.  Way2Go is based on patented technology, enabling users to plan, review, share and navigate their routes in a full 3D virtual world with smooth zooming and perspective angle maneuverability. Way2Go one-ups mapping solutions like MapQuest, Google Map and Yahoo Maps.”

Don’t take their word for it – download a free route map when you sign up. The Way2Go service, which provides you with up to 15 route maps a month, usually costs $4.99 a month, but they are giving away a sample route for FREE! You register, download the appropriate viewer – Windows, Symbian, Blackberry, or Windows Mobile – and build yourself a route map for any to-from route in the US, UK, Germany, and some other European countries.

If you don’t want to subscribe to a GPS service, Way2Go is a great alternative, because there are no online charges – you download the route directly to your device, in advance of your trip – and the Way2Go maps are way better than anything Google or Yahoo has. 3DVU has its own rendering engine (used in its other products as well). If nothing else, a 3D map will keep you more alert on the road, making it safer for you to drive. I downloaded a map with a route from my parents’ house on the Jersey Shore to NYC – the Garden State Parkway never looked so good!