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Wednesday January 14, 2009
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Auto-stop systems, which cut the engine while idling at a traffic light in order to save fuel, are beginning to hit mainstream vehicles across the globe. A Ford executive said at the Detroit auto show last week that over the next several years, all Ford vehicles will get auto-stop capability, according to AutoblogGreen. Today, only Ford hybrids, including the Escape and Fusion (along with their Mercury counterparts, the Mariner and Milan), can do it.
The report said that automakers are adding the systems to manual transmission cars first, since the driver always sends a clear signal—shifting back into first—before he or she wants to begin moving again. But in the U.S., automatic transmission cars represent 95 percent of the market. In the case of an automatic, "an electro hydraulic pump must be added to shift the transmission back to first gear before restarting." Look for auto-stop systems to appear on dual-clutch and other "auto-manual" style combination transmissions first, before they eventually appear on regular automatics.
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January 14, 2009 3:03 PM
How will we know the difference between it auto stopping and just plain dying. It's a Ford afterall. lol
January 15, 2009 8:08 AM
I driven Ford vehicles since 2002, before that I had a Nissan and a Honda. I have had fewer problems with the Ford vehicles and all of them minor. This is a great technology and from what I have read it is being implemented in a much broader more impactful way than the competitors, making it a true green initiative not a PR stunt.
January 15, 2009 7:52 PM
Auto-stop will save more fuel than all the Priuses in the world combined, especially since our clueless traffic engineers know next to nothing about how to synchronize traffic signals and promote the "flow" of traffic. For some reason, they like cars idling seemingly endlessly at a red light while the cross-street traffic is non-existent. They like a sequence of red-green-red-green, never mind that it wreaks havoc on traffic patterns. So, if you can't kill all the traffic engineers, the next best thing is to not waste gas.
January 16, 2009 11:27 AM
I'm not knocking this technology or Ford, I think this is great. But I doubt that this will "save more fuel than all the Priuses combined" since the Prius and other hybrid cars have already been doing this for years...
January 16, 2009 3:01 PM
Ok, two questions that aren't supposed to be asked.
1. What does this do to the service life of the starter?
2. What is the net effect on both energy consumption and polution by having to both restart the engine and replace the starter motor so much more often?
January 17, 2009 3:26 AM
A stupid idea by a stupid company that should have gone out of business.
January 18, 2009 8:33 PM
Something to think about...
Catalytic converters need to heat up to be effective (around 1300 degrees F), it takes about 6 to 7 miles of driving to do this...If this car shuts off every time you stop, the catalytic converter in your car is basically useless. So while the catalytic converter isn't working and you're saving gas and our planet, you're actually releasing more toxic substance into the air for a longer period of time.