One of the most common misunderstandings in the automotive world lately is what automakers are required or not required to do. For instance, a modern car almost certainly has to have a collapsible steering wheel and a catalytic converter. A passenger-side mirror isn’t required by the feds, nor is there any sort of federal EV mandate.
Lee Zeldin, the newest administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, tweeted yesterday that he wanted to kill “stop-start” technology. It’s just yet another intersection of politics and cars I’m going to try to tackle in The Morning Dump, though he sort of has a point. Or, at least, half a point.
That’s not all! Republicans in the House are working on both an end to the EV tax credit and the addition of deductibility of car interest. What survives and what doesn’t is all up in the air at this moment.
The economic picture is looking perhaps a bit rosier this morning as inflation estimates show that the economy is not getting cataclysmically worse, even though at least one car-related metric is trending in the wrong direction.
Nissan is also still trending in the wrong direction, so some tough decisions are going to have to be made.
‘Everyone Hates It’
Start/stop technology: where your car dies at every red light so companies get a climate participation trophy. EPA approved it, and everyone hates it, so we’re fixing it. pic.twitter.com/zFhijMyHDe
— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) May 12, 2025
Does literally “everyone” hate stop/start technology as EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claims above? No, but it’s true that many folks haven’t been fans of the tech, even though it’s gotten better over time. I’d say, on modern cars, I bet most people don’t care about stop/start systems, which shut off the engine when stopped for long periods of time to save fuel.
Personally, I just had a car with stop/start, and it would sometimes cause an awkward drop in brake pressure when the vehicle couldn’t decide if I was stopping or not. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t like it. The first version of it I experienced was on a Chevy Malibu, I think, and the early versions were quite bad. Additionally, almost every car with stop/start allows you to turn it off, but most make it a requirement every time you get in the car, as opposed to something you can just defeat permanently.
Why are carmakers doing it? Are the feds making them do it? Not quite. Let’s break down what’s being said here.
“Start/stop technology: where your car dies at every red light so companies get a climate participation trophy.”
The car doesn’t die, per se, but it does turn off. It can definitely be annoying! Hybrids, like my CR-V, and even mild-hybrids like BMW’s eBoost, offer a seamless experience because the vehicle can coast to a stop, which makes it less awkward. I doubt many BMW buyers even notice eBoost working.
The “participation trophy” is a reference to the fact that, while not required, automakers get credit (via the off-cycle credit program) for all sorts of things to weigh against both federal and CARB emission requirements. Some of these are legit, and others are, well, less legit.
As Jason Fenske points out in the video above, people who idle their cars often at stoplights likely see a real benefit from stop-start in fuel savings. One estimate shows that almost 10 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions are taken out of the environment every year by this requirement.
A “participation trophy” in this sense is trying to encourage automakers to do things that make cars more efficient, which is a net good thing. Stop/start is an easy target because many people do hate it for completely understandable reasons.
“EPA approved it, and everyone hates it, so we’re fixing it.”
This gets a little more complicated. Automakers like the credit because it’s a simple way to keep emissions in check, which, if California gets to maintain its waiver, is going to be important. If California loses its waiver and the government rolls back requirements, well, automakers might care a little less.
If “fixing it” just means removing the credit–and that’s the only thing it could mean–I doubt it’ll change that much automaker behavior. More and more vehicles are moving towards better mild-hybrid setups or full-hybrid setups that consumers like (or don’t even notice). Plus, most cars are designed for multiple markets these days, so the incentive to pull out stop/start probably isn’t huge.
This feels a bit like saying you’re going to regulate horseshoe technology in 1913, but for the people who still use the old-style horseshoes maybe it’s a compelling argument. This is a cautionary tale of the unintended consequences of regulation, wherein companies do something to check a box that ultimately serves its purpose while also pissing a not small number of consumers/voters off.
[Ed Note: I get why people dislike ESS; sometimes it’s unrefined, and the real-world fuel savings in terms of MPGs are often quite modest (though they can reach between 7 percent and 26 percent, per SAE, as Consumer Reports notes). To many consumers (like my parents), it’s not worth the tradeoff. Still, the concept is good, and modern 48 volt ESS systems are quite solid. -DT].
EV Tax Credit Dead (Maybe), Car Loan Interest Deductible (Maybe)
Now that tariffs are, slightly, on the sidelines, President Trump is working on his single big bill to codify many of his ambitions, including the continuation of his tax policy from his first term. Just to make it simple, I’ll refer to it as the tax bill.
In theory, via the Byrd Rule, any changes to the federal budget have to balance out in order to reduce the deficit. This rarely happens, but it’s a legislative hurdle. Again, in theory, most Republicans and Democrats want a balanced budget, even if in practice no party seems to have any sort of discipline in this regard when they’re in power.
Any continuation of tax cuts will have to be paid for, and one way to partially do that is to eliminate the EV tax credit and any EV manufacturing stimulus put forth by the Biden Administration.
Unsurprisingly, according to Reuters (via AN), that’s what Republicans want to do:
The proposal, set for a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on May 13, would repeal a $7,500 new-vehicle tax credit and a $4,000 used-vehicle credit on Dec. 31, although it would maintain the new-vehicle credit for an additional year for automakers that have not yet sold 200,000 EVs.
The president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, Genevieve Cullen, criticized the proposal, saying that plans “to abandon U.S. leadership in energy innovation by gutting federal investment in electrification are catastrophically short-sighted.”
Hey, good news for Slate, as under this plan, the first 200,000 customers would get the tax credit. I’m open to the argument that there should be a cap on tax credits, as, once automakers are established as EV automakers, do they really need the discount? I’d make the number closer to 800,000 vehicles, given just how hard it is to make cars.
This would offset about $2 billion a year, which isn’t all that much compared to the scale of the federal budget, but it’s not nothing.
There’s another piece of this, though:
House Republicans also propose to kill a loan program that supports the manufacture of certain advanced technology vehicles. It would rescind any unobligated funding and rescind corporate average fuel economy standards and greenhouse gas emission rules for 2027 and beyond. That portion will be taken up by the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Among outstanding loans finalized in President Joe Biden’s last weeks in office are $9.63 billion to a joint venture of Ford and South Korean battery maker SK On for construction of three battery manufacturing plants in Tennessee and Kentucky; $7.54 billion to a joint venture of Stellantis and Samsung for two EV lithium-ion battery plants in Indiana; and $6.57 billion to Rivian for a plant in Georgia to begin building smaller, less expensive EVs in 2028.
Again, making cars is hard and expensive, and pulling potential plants that are already in the process of being established seems like a bad precedent.
This isn’t the only action, however, as one Michigan Congressman is putting forward the idea of making car loan interest deductible on America-built cars, as USA Today reports:
Huizenga, R-Holland Township, proposed the so-called Made in America Motors Act on May 7, saying it would allow consumers to deduct up to $2,500 in interest paid on a motor vehicle loan in a given year as long as the vehicle was assembled in the U.S.
No deduction would be allowed for any vehicle loan which is already granted a deduction, but the new deduction would be available to taxpayers whether or not they itemize on their annual tax forms. If approved as proposed, the deduction — which could potentially help spur auto sales of U.S.-assembled vehicles — would be allowed for vehicles purchased in calendar year 2025 or later.
This is obviously a way bigger deal for people who buy expensive trucks and other vehicles, as to get to $2,500 annually, you’d need to buy an $80,000 car with $0 down for a 60-month payment at a 5% interest rate, for example. Some people do that, but most do not. It’s good that this is outside the standard deduction, otherwise, it wouldn’t help anyone but the richest taxpayers.
Ultimately, though, you’re not getting $2,500 back; you’re just taking that off your taxes. Estimates show that most people can only expect to save under $150 a year, unless you’re in the top 1%, then you might save $500 a year.
Inflation Was Mild, But Car Insurance Went Up
For all of my talk about a potential recession, my longstanding hope is that this doesn’t happen and that a little bit of flexibility on tariffs can keep our otherwise resiliant economy afloat. The walking back of yesterday’s Chinese tariffs was a good sign that the current administration isn’t entirely inflexible.
The latest Consumer Price Index Summary from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that inflation remains neither great nor terrible. It’s as Mild as Taco Bell hot sauce.
Here’s where inflation went up, according to the BLS:
The index for all items less food and energy rose 2.8 percent over the past 12 months. The shelter index increased 4.0 percent over the last year. Other indexes with notable increases over the last year include medical care (+2.7 percent), motor vehicle insurance (+6.4 percent), education (+3.8 percent), and recreation (+1.6 percent).
Oof. Car insurance sucks right now and I don’t see cars getting any cheaper to fix, which just makes this number harder to bring down. There’s a way to look at this and see companies reluctant to raise prices with a huge tax bill floating out there. For instance, could Jeff Bezos stall price increases at Amazon in order to get a tax credit for 400,000 Slate EVs? It’s not impossible.
Nissan Increases Layoffs To 20,000
There’s no use building a bunch of copies of unprofitable cars, so Nissan is doubling its planned layoffs, according to the company. This is part of the “Re:Nissan” plan to fix what’s wrong with Nissan, and the aggressiveness is the point. One of the biggest critiques of the previous Nissan CEO was that he was slow to recognize the scale of the problem.
The new guy, Ivan Espinosa, clearly recognized the scale of the problem and had this to say:
“In the face of challenging FY24 performance and rising variable costs, compounded by an uncertain environment, we must prioritize self-improvement with greater urgency and speed, aiming for profitability that relies less on volume. As new management, we are taking a prudent approach to reassess our targets and actively seek every possible opportunity to implement and ensure a robust recovery. Re:Nissan is an action-based recovery plan clearly outlines what we need to do now. All employees are committed to working together as a team to implement this plan, with the goal of returning to profitability by fiscal year 2026.”
Practically, this means closing plants and cutting about 20,000 jobs, which is more than the 11,000 the company was previously planning. Additionally, the number of plants will be reduced from 17 to 10 as the company aims to hit positive operating profitability by FY 2026.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
This has come up before, but I think we’re all sleeping on Vanessa Carlton. She plays piano… on a truck! I love pianos. And trucks! Her parents have a sweet Taurus! Please enjoy “A Thousand Miles.”
The Big Question
Tell me all your feelings about stop/start. Do you love it? Do you hate it?
Top photo: Stellantis
Had a 2001 honda insight, the king of all hybrids. The start/stop only worked if you had the hvac in eco mode. Takes a little to get used to at first but was fine with it except for in the summer. In the winter it was no big deal. I can live without the heat for 30 seconds. I can not and will not go without ac for any amount of seconds when it’s in the high 90’s and the humidity is through the roof. Summers in MS. But there’s also the added wear and tear on the engine.
‘Home’ is actually my favorite Vanessa Carlton song but, disappointingly, to my knowledge there are no trucks involved in the recording.
I manually stop and start my car at long lights or drive-thrus so obviously I am in the pro camp.
I’ve only experienced the technology on rental cars and in my experience, you could control whether the engine stopped based on how hard you pressed the brake.
Mash it down all the way for a stop sign it was 100% going to turn off, but if you lightly applied the brakes you could prevent the engine from stopping and continue performing “California” stops to your hearts content without the engine turning off.
Stop Start is fine. My GTI is pretty easy to have it not activate, it needs quite a bit of pressure on the brake to do it.
I usually trigger it if I just missed a light cycle and know I’m gonna be sitting there for 3 minutes to turn onto the highway. At stop signs it almost never goes off.
I’ve only experienced Start/Stop on a few borrowed/rented vehicles, but it was terrible on all of them.
If it waited ~5 seconds before turning the car off, it might be less annoying.
Tariffs are no longer a problem? We still have a 30% tariff on China. Sure, that’s down from the buffoonishly large 145%, but it’s still huge. The stock market is happy because the pricing effects of the tariffs haven’t yet hit consumers because there’s a lag between when things get imported and when they show up in factories or stores. The shit has yet to hit the fan on this stuff. Just wait a few months for the next earnings season.
Stop-start on hybrids is a complete non-issue. I bet most people don’t even notice it. And no, it doesn’t kill engines prematurely. My gen 2 Prius is renowned for having a bulletproof engine (oil consumption kills most of them, which is related to tiny oil control rings on the pistons, not stop-start) and it stops and starts all the time.
I get why people don’t like it on non-hybrids, but I’d still rather have it than not. I hate sitting at a stop light burning gas for no reason. But as you mentioned, the non-hybrid use case is likely going to be a non-issue in the near future, so why are we fixated on it?
Vanessa Carlton has one good song. I saw her live last summer and everything prior to A Thousand Miles was completely forgettable. There’s a reason you can’t name a single other song by her. She’s a good musician, but a bland songwriter.
The hell you say! If nothing else, her cover of Paint It Black is great. Heck, on her sophomore album, she even made a U2 song sound good and even U2 can’t do that. But it’s not just covers, either. I think you need to listen to the first three albums in their entirety and come back with a report for the class.
… I might be a fan. But there is more depth than you might think.
As a Jeep Wrangler JL owner (DT, please chime in), I hate ESS. The JL’s system incorporates a separate, smaller 12v battery that supports vehicle function when ESS kicks in, saving the primary battery for starting, etc. The forums are full of folks whose secondary battery erodes first, and then takes out the primary. Once the primary goes, it can’t be jumped until the secondary system is bypassed. I’m seeing this now. ESS is nonfunctional until I put a trickle charger on the system and charge the secondary battery. I’ll try to replace the battery under warranty while I can, but will implement the bypass hack (disconnect secondary battery, pull a fuse) once I’m out of warranty. I don’t have a problem with ESS, but the way that FCA/Stellantis implemented it in the Wrangler sucks!
Wait until you have to change the ESS battery, and you’ll really appreciate how they integrated it.
Sounds like Chrysler didn’t reserve their terrible stop start system for only the Pacifica. It’s awful. Aux battery that goes bad, which also makes the main battery go bad. That was the first time. The second time did all that and killed the alternator too. That was the last straw. It also has a habit of taking just a fraction of a second to start and get moving when you need to accelerate quickly from a dead stop. Caused multiple instances of not feeling safe when like I have a window to pull out into traffic but the car just doesn’t go when I expected (and needed it) to. Couple rolling back on a hill situations.
The auto stop eliminator. $100 widget you plug in between the button and harness. Remembers the button’s state every time you turn the car off. It’s the best $100 I’ve spent on this van.
I have been known to turn off my vehicle in notorious drive-thrus, but not at stoplights. I have never had a stop-start, though. I just can’t imagine having that decided for me.
High five to my fellow drive-thru engine stopper!
Same here.
And I keep an extra onion in my glove box.
It was the fashion at the time.
I generally avoid drive-throughs, notorious or not. It’s usually easier to park and walk in. So, technically, that could be a stop-start.
I’ve been in a number of cars that had it. A ’15 BMWs wasn’t great and a ’16 Acura was worse. But I’ve been in ones that were virtually unnoticeable. Oddly, one of them was a ’17 or ’18 Chevy Malibu.
A similar argument usually erupts about the cylinder-deactivation system (VCM) in V35Y engines in the last few years of ninth generation. It is slightly noticeable when the three uh, resting injectors and valves return to duty, but it’s subtle. I saw on one of the forums that there is a workaround like pulling a fuse or something like that. I haven’t bothered.
My parents truck has stop/start… slightly older implementation too. 2019 I think? Anyway, I don’t notice it when I drive their truck. But they sure do. I swear they leap to that disable button like puppies will be kicked if they forget. It’s entirely because it’s new tech they don’t like…and not for any well thought out reason. Some implementations seem legit crappy… maybe that’s the issue?
It does feel like a technology that might’ve been done dirty by its earlier implementations, similar to belt-driven CVTs.
That doesn’t sound very comfortable for her or us.
I didn’t think of it that way originally, but now I wonderrrrrrrrrrr.
She seems lovely, but I’m not sure I would walk a thousand miles just to see let alone sleep on her.
Not accurate, per your own link.
$150 is their estimate for low-income buyers, $270 for middle income, and $950 for higher income people.
Ah, I see a separate and completely different analysis further down the article. Confusing, depending I suppose on which people pay how much in interest. Mileage may vary, as they say.
I’d walk a thousand miles to get a vehicle without start/stop.
As others have stated, start-up is the highest point of wear for an engine. This isn’t a concern in a proper hybrid that can travel some distance between starting events. But in vehicles like my 2018 Ecoboost F150, it could start/stop a half dozen times waiting your turn at a 4-way stop as you inch forward.
I just made turning it off part of my ritual when I dropped in the seat, the same way I did it with turning off traction control in my Genesis Coupe (Hyundai’s system in the 2010-2012 Coupes was straight-up dangerous. ANY wheel slip caused complete throttle cut for several seconds.)
On our 2024 Seltos, you can wedge a piece of zip tie along the edge of the deactivate button to keep it pressed in, which provides permanent stop/start deactivation.
One of the very few blessings during Covid and the chip crisis was vehicles not getting stop/start and getting a credit on the window sticker.
Once my Jag was at the dealer and they gave me an XE loaner that had the start/stop. It didn’t take me long to figure out how to turn it off, and thank goodness. I can’t imagine living with that.
“My loaner Jaaaaag had a fancy little button to turn off the engine turn-off. I’m very pleased my normal Jaaaaaag does without this feature.”
I’m sorry. My natural instinct whenever I see “Jaaaag.”
Stop/start is mildly annoying at worst, but it sounds like many other vehicles have implemented it in a worse format than our Volvo has. It really only comes on at red lights and the engine fires right back up, no issues.
Same on my ’25 Civic. It’s also extremely easy to modulate, because it only shuts off if you’ve got the brake pedal all the way to the floor. If you know you’ll only be stopped for a few seconds just don’t have the brake pedal fully down. I’m generally okay with it, honestly.
Same here. I wished I had it for just a few long stops on my commute. Obviously, I don’t deal with it in my Tesla Y Performance and it was seamless years ago when I had a ’16 Sonata PHEV Limited (was not on my ’21 Sonata N Line) since it was able to start driving as an EV only and the engine firing up was smooth and seamless for 80k miles. It was in our ‘21.5 Atlas SEL R Line (VR6) and is in our new ’25 Atlas SEL Premium R Line (turbo 4). If you know you don’t want it to activate, don’t drive your foot to the floor when using the brake. If you ease off the brake, the engine will fire up.
Exactly this! As long as you’re not an ape that can’t modulate the brake pedal it’s a complete non-issue and can be controlled when the engine turns off. You’d think the pro being in control crowd that preaches manuals could figure that out.
Almost seems like they just enjoy bitching about stuff.
I personally have only experienced start stop in non-hybrids and it was fairly terrible and I can only imagine how fast those cars are going to burn through starters. But in hybrids with starter/generators I can see it being just fine.
This is one area where I and our fascist overlords agree. I really hate it because of the extra wear it puts on the engine. The starting of a motor is the worst time for it.
I don’t know anyone within my circle of friends who likes stop start technology.
There’s the inconvenience factor, the wear and tear factor (both on engine and starter), and the general inability to permanently disable.
And while start stop does technically save gas, so does driving 60 mph on highways, and hypermiling – neither of which your typical driver wants to do.
Where this would make sense is in a hybrid setup, where electrical engine can take over low speed driving, to reduce the number of start stop start stop cycles within a short time period.
Or alternatively, a gas engine acting as a generator only for the electric drivetrain.
Short of that, yeah, it sucks that this is being used for political brownie points. But it’s not exactly technology that people will cry over losing.
“That’s not all! Republicans in the House are working on both an end to the EV tax credit and the addition of deductibility of car interest.”
Oh that’s just great. I can see it now. The 4 box spiel becomes the 5 box spiel.
“And in this box here is how much money you’ll get back from the interest deductions, which when we add to your monthly budget means you can get the Limited instead of the XLE!”
I’m generally all for things that improve environmental conditions. But Stop/Start is not one of them. My wife’s car has it, and over the ~108,000 miles on her car in ~6 years, I think it’s saved less than 5 gallons worth of gasoline. It generally makes driving unpleasant (less confidence on pulling out into traffic, sweaty conditions on hot days, and I suspect it is partly why her car has gone through two batteries already). Oh, and all the times the car shuts off a split second before you are planning on taking your foot off the brake…
The fact it has to count the amount of gasoline saved thousandths of a gallon, or else it would tick up so slowly everyone would think it’s broken, kinda reinforces my idea that it just ain’t worth it.
This era of US history will be defined by the most powerful people who’ve ever lived being obsessed with completely inconsequential minutia.
And others’ inconsequential genitalia
Your hedge needs to be trimmed and that extra car you have is 2 inches over the sidewalk.
I hated the automated start/stop (ASS) on my truck so much that I learned how to use FORScan so that I could set it permanently to off rather than having to push the button each time I started the car. The most annoying glitch for me was whenever I was parking it would shut off when I stopped, but then cut back on when I shifted to park, only for me to then have to shut it off again when I turned the ignition off.
I thought this was just a Subaru thing. Do all stop/start implementations do this? It’s mind-boggling stupid.
Stop/start is like the 1-4 skip shift in that it is annoying for marginal benefit (if any) while actually driving, but artificially propped up because of poorly designed incentives.
If only it were as easy to permanently defeat.
I had to read “Lee Zeldin” about three times and I still have “Whole Lotta Love” going through my head.
Don’t give him ideas. As the EPA administrator he’ll be bringing back leaded gas soon.
As a guy who has a few carbureted cars that have a more “involuntary” form of stop/start, I can confirm my anxiety goes way through the roof whether a 1989 Subaru does it or a new car does it because in the back of my head, I’m not sure it’s ever going to start back up.
LEAN BURN IS BACK, BABY.
Ha, my 86 Vanagon has start/stop technology that can self-activate at any moment, usually where there’s nowhere to pull over.