What Else Can Government Do to Mess Up Your Automobile?
Automobiles, Energy, Environmentalism, Nanny State, Start-Stop System
UPI reports that another great European nanny state measure is on the way.
[S]tart-stop systems that turn off a car when it is idling and reignite the engine when the driver releases the brake will be coming to the United States and Canada in the next five years, The Detroit News reported.
The technology is widespread in Europe and will be embraced in North America as a tool to meet increasingly stringent fuel-economy and emissions requirements, auto experts say.
“Engineers kill for one-tenth of a mile per gallon,” Joe Phillippi of AutoTrends Consulting Inc. said. “In city driving, it would make a huge impact.”
Estimates vary, but the consensus is shutting off the engine at a stop can improve fuel economy as much as 15 percent.
Consumer acceptance could be a challenge.
“It is a strange sensation because the engine suddenly turns off,” said analyst Stephanie Brinley of EMC Strategic Communications in Troy, Mich. “It is quick and seamless, but you can tell it happens.”
Half of the new cars in Europe will have start-stop technology in 2012, and North America will reach that figure in 2016, said Frank Frister, product manager with Bosch North America, one of the companies developing stop-start systems.
There you’ll be stopped at the light, and in front of you will be one of those holier-than-thous who has taken care to equip himself with the latest earth-saving technology.
The light changes, the complex electronic system stutters, and the democrat in the Prius fiddles with his ignition trying to get his engine restarted as seconds tick by and your blood pressure rises.
