What's Wrong With This Picture: Land Of The (Stop-Start) Free Edition
America has always been a land of extremes, and our automotive scene is no different. While current automotive debate obsesses over a high-efficiency halo car, our domestic auto industry is mounting a comeback largely on the back of pickups and large cars and crossovers. Meanwhile, we’re falling behind in the quest to make all cars more efficient with practical “bolt-on” systems like “stop-start” or “microhybrid” systems that turn off gas engines at stops. So what are we missing out on? According to a report from SeekingAlpha, stop-start systems provide
estimated fuel savings range from 5% in government mandated tests and 10% under real world city-highway driving to almost 20% in congested city traffic
Which would provide a hell of a lot more fuel savings than any high-price, limited-production eco-halo car. But, as Mazda has complained, the US EPA test cycle doesn’t provide any Monroney Sticker advantage to stop-start systems, even if they provide real-world improvements in fuel efficiency. Maybe instead of trying to keep EVs and plug-in halos on subsidy life support as long as possible, our government should be looking at ways of incentivizing across-the-board efficiency improvements like those offered by stop-start systems.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
Comments
Join the conversation
I'm sure it returns better real-world gas mileage, but being someone who drives at least 1/2 miles during non-rush and has exactly 1 light between the highway & the house (town of 27k) I'm not sure how much it would add to my gas mileage...
I am guessing that in 5 or so years, you will start to see this on many vehicles. Fuel economy regs getting tighter, this will help... just got to get this into the testing somehow.
Combustion interruptus.
Of course there is nothing to stop you manually stopping the engine at each stop, for a week to see if it is worth it. I bet you find the fuel savings are minute. In my case my car use about 2 pints of fuel per hour when stopped, even with the AC running flat out. SO in my 6 hours of driving a week I spend perhaps 20 minutes at idle, 3/4 of a pint saved out of 6 gallons. Um, every little helps, but color me unimpressed.