IS THE END OF THE STOP-START FEATURE AT HAND?
Stop-Start technology, which turns off an engine when a vehicle stops for traffic or a red light, faces a multi-pronged attack from President Donald Trump’s spending and tax law, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, and consumers looking for ways to disable it.
Although every vehicle manufacturer claims the transition from engine off to engine on is seamless, many a car or truck owner would vehemently disagree. As a matter of fact, there would be a joyful uproar from all the owners of this vehicle technology at its demise. Would the majority of car and truck owners be willing to sacrifice 4 to 7% of their fuel economy under normal stop-and-go urban driving conditions to be rid of the annoying stop-start experience? I believe they would. Those who use their vehicles for delivery purposes may feel differently about the feature because, under those driving conditions, they may realize significant savings on fuel costs.
Sixty-two percent of 2023 model year vehicles claimed a credit for stop-start technology from the EPA, according to the agency’s most recent Automotive Trends Report. Eighteen manufacturers installed stop-start systems in at least some of their vehicles. The technology is designed to save fuel at brief stops.
Despite its ubiquity, the feature is polarizing, as noted by this May post on social media platform X from Zeldin: “Everyone hates it,” and the EPA is “fixing it.” One civil engineering professor told The New York Times the stop-start credit is worth about $30 per vehicle for automakers.
Policy attacks on corporate average fuel economy standards have incentivized automakers to equip vehicles with the feature. It does save fuel. Edmunds found that in 2014 and 2015 model year vehicles, fuel savings hovered around 10 percent in city traffic.
But Trump eliminated an important incentive for stop-start when he signed his spending and tax law on July 4. It ended fines for CAFE noncompliance. The Trump administration separately scrapped penalties retroactively to the 2022 model year. The EPA also awards credits for automakers that include specific technologies with apparent emissions reductions that may not show up in lab testing, including stop-start. The agency under Zeldin has promised to reconsider the greenhouse gas emissions standards that enable the credits. “If there’s no CAFE program that can be enforced, and there’s not a greenhouse gas standard that requires improvement, that would remove the incentive for automakers to put in this technology,” said Chris Harto, senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports.
Driver pushback in addition to policy headwinds, automakers have faced pushback from some consumers who find the technology disruptive despite fuel savings. Automakers allow drivers to disable stop-start with the push of a button, but many vehicles default to stop-start after the car is started again. Insurance company Direct Line surveyed more than 2,000 drivers in the United Kingdom in 2024 and found 27 percent do not use stop-start often because it is “actively annoying.”
E-commerce sites such as Amazon are replete with stop-start eliminators, including cables that plug into a port to simulate the disable button being pushed. Social media users have shared workarounds such as putting less pressure on the brake pedal to prevent the engine from turning off and using a trailer light tester to trick the vehicle. Drivers also express concerns that stop-start wears out engine components, but suppliers and manufacturers such as Continental and Ford say there is no additional maintenance required for stop-start systems.
The EPA declined to provide more details about how it plans to improve stop-start technology. “Stop/start technology is a feature in automobiles that frustrates millions of Americans.
Source: Automotive News