If you start your car two or three times a day, prepare for a shock. Over the next decade, that figure is likely to rise by a factor of 10. Soon your car's engine will automatically shut down at traffic lights and stop signs. It will turn off during heavy rush-hour driving. It may even shut down when you pull your foot off the accelerator and coast, possibly at speeds of up to 75mph. Experts say the so-called start-stop wave is coming, and the auto industry is bracing for its arrival.
"It's going to start happening in 2012," says Doug Patton, senior vice president of engineering for Denso International America, an automotive supplier introducing a family of starters. "And it's going to ramp up fast. The start-stop change will affect a large percentage of the market over the next three years."
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In addition to a heavy-duty starter, start-stop systems require such components as enhanced engine control, battery management, DC/DC converters, and more robust crankshaft sensors.
(Source: Robert Bosch LLC)
US automakers have begun unveiling a new breed of start-stop-equipped vehicles. Ford, Chevy, Buick, Kia, and BMW will roll out the technology early in 2012. Their vehicles will join a handful of models from Fiat, Volvo, and Alfa Romeo that already have it. Moreover, start-stop has also taken hold in Europe, where the percentage of new vehicles carrying the technology has risen from about 5 percent in 2008 to more than 20 percent today.
The reason for this seemingly sudden phenomenon is obvious. When your engine is turned off, it doesn't burn gasoline. suppliers say brief shutdowns can boost fuel efficiency by 3 to 10 percent. That figure will rise even higher if automakers are willing to shut off the engine while the car is coasting.
Chances are that the technology will be adopted quickly, even if consumers don't demand it. New corporate average fuel economy (CAFÉ) regulations in the US call for cars and light-duty trucks to reach 54.5mpg by 2025, adding a sense of urgency to start-stop's uptake.
"Eventually, we'll see 100 percent of new vehicles offering start-stop," Patton says. "It will probably happen over the next 10 to 15 years."
As we prepare (and continue) to evolve to 'higher tech' systems to seemingly fulfil our dreams and needs, concerns of reliability, longevity, etc are very valid.
NASA, a leading technolgy endeavor with huge success, figured these issues out long ago. Carry a spare. Use 2 starters. Most on this forum may have 2
cars. A couple pair of glasses. 2 laptops,..... Check your local car repair shop. The OEMs have plenty of newer models in for warranty, recall, etc.
Sounds like expensive transportation, but job creation at the least. Maybe change starters like oil. Yes sir, 'give me a lube, oil, filter, and starter'.
How many times would a starter re-engage in common commutes where traffic stops, move a few feet, stop, move a few feet?
Will it be hot in the summer when the A/C shuts off? No, just add another battery and stystem to run the A/C, or heater, or wipers, or lights.
How about decreasing the rolling resistance of tires, or no air, this is close! Hats off to tire research!
Use lighter weight materials. Reduce weight; the skin and other body parts aren't 'wear parts'.
What is a 'seamless' restart really worth? How about a 'kill switch' and driver discretion?
Maybe this goes the same way as 42 volts????
We are all in this togehter you know......we are consumers.
In what sense are these vehicles "hybrids" by any stretch of the imagination? The term properly refers to a vehicle that includes two (or more) sources of propulsion. The conventional gas-electric hybrid has some of the characteristics of a gasoline-powered vehicle, and some of an electric car.
Other kinds of hybrids are being developed, for example the gas-compressed air hybrid and the gas-hydraulic hybrid.
Simply shutting off the engine at stoplights doesn't make a gasoline-powered car a "hybrid." Really, we need a better word. This is marketing nonsense at its worst.
These are hybrids in the sense of Toyoto Prius. Gasoline engine/brushless electric generator/motor. They are operating in Mercedes autos in Paris cabs.
Have I missed something? According to the article, the electric motor in a "start-stop hybrid" exists to restart the gasoline engine, not to propel the car.
The Prius, to use your example, is capable of driving for a short distance using only battery power. Not so with these vehicles.
Maybe these vehicles should be called "zero-RPM idle" to distinguish them from actual hybrids.
araasch; I was seriously considering the Ford Escape Hybrid. What I did buy was a 2009 Chrysler Aspen hybrid. The determining factor for me was the 5.7 liter Hemi. I can still tow a trailer. If I pay attention to my driving, and in excellent traffic conditions, I can average 25 mpg (per the computer - and the gas pump has agreed). My mileage does suffer in cold weather as the engine runs until it gets to operating temperature. So the engine runs at the first few red lights in cold weather. All of the accessories seem to be electric - the 'serpentine' belt seems to have only 2 pulleys - it is hard to see buried in the engine compartment. The stop-start is not quite seamless. Passengers do not notice it, but the driver can detect a tiny lag between pressing on the accelerator and the engine kicking in. In a traffic jam or stop-and-go driving I can get about 20 minutes of light acceleration sub-25 mph driving before the engine has to re-charge the battery, vs other cars with the engine constantly idling. That said, I would not have even considered a pure stop-start design.
The figure about the accessories accounting for 90% of battery load at stop confirms my line about modern automobiles: "Today's cars are an electronics platform with an engine and transmission thrown in as an afterthought." Humorous though that may be, there's some truth in it. The start-stop technology about which Chuck writes is clearly positively impacting mileage and many commenters here have spoken of their experiences with the Aspen, Escape Hybrid, etc. The collateral effect that I wonder about is what kind of reliability will we see in these new drivetrains, both predicted (by the manufacturer) and actual, as these vehicles age during their service lives on the road. (I.e.,, will reliability and repairability -- these cars require really well trained technicians -- loom as a big unexpected owner expense as these cars age?
GlennA: There are three categoroies. The microhybrid uses a beefed up starter to handle the 10X increase in starts. The mild hybrid (like Buick eAssist) uses an integrated starter-generator for start-stop and for other benefits (such as regenerative braking) but generally does not use it for electric propulsion. The full hybrid, like the Prius, uses its motor-generator for electric propulsion.
I agree with you, Rob. The so-called "microhybrid" doesn't really fall under the definition of the word "hybrid," since it's not being propelled by another power source. I don't know how the microhybrid label originated, but my guess is that the name stuck because it shuts off at traffic lights, like a real hybrid does.
As energy efficiency becomes more and more a concern for makers of electronics devices, researchers are coming up with new ways to harvest energy from sound vibration, footsteps, and even electromagnetic fields in the air.
The government wants to study your brain, and DARPA wants to use similar information to give robots true autonomy beyond any artificial intelligence developed to date. Sound like science fiction? It's not.
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