Stop-Start Technology to Save Fuel, Become Standard in Future Cars
Stop-Start is a system that shuts the engine off when the vehicle is stopped and turns it back on when the driver takes their foot off the the brake or steps on the throttle. Stop-Start first appeared in the early 1980s in the Volkswagen Golf and Fiat Ritmo. It was dropped because it hurt the vehicle’s performance and did not provide enough of a fuel savings to justify its high cost. Besides, gas was cheap. Times have changed. The feature will start to appear in 2010 in many European amkes. It is said that about 2.5 million of these vehicles will be manufactured in Europe and 300,000 will be made in Asia. Our take? The cliche, "Necessity is the Mother of Invention" applied to Stop-Start technology. We won't be surprised if other, once dismissed systems are brought back in future cars as car owners finally realize that oil companies are out to get them. via cnet
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