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
Hate it so much I bought a disabler.
I have a 2wd 2023 Ram 1500 Stupendo-Cab with the 3.6 liter Pentastar eTorque.
The start-stop is pretty much invisible unless it’s really hot; then the air conditioning compressor switches off and after a minute or two the cabin starts to warm up. The start-stop also makes a pretty big difference in city fuel economy – at least 10% better. The EPA city rating of 20 takes some work to hit (inertia is a bitch), but without the stop-start active it is all but impossible.
I don’t really LIKE the Ram, but for a ludicrously large vehicle it does pretty well. I made a 125-mile round-trip yesterday with 10 or 15 miles on city streets and averaged just over 26 mpg – that’s better than my old Grand Marquis, which was no more comfortable to drive and less comfortable for passengers. Still, when my near-future plans resolve I’ll probably sell the Ram and get something smaller and more efficient and much, much more fun.
My dad’s Forester has start/stop and it is absolutely terrible. The starter is so rough on that car. The whole car shakes every time it starts up.
Yeah, some implementations are just bad. In my hybrid, I honestly can’t tell most of the time when the engine is running or not, other than by the EV light on the dash
Auto start/stop doesn’t really bother me in itself, so much as the lack of an ability to shut it off permanently in cars where it is annoying, instead of having it default back to on every time the car is shut off. Would also like that ability for other features, like lane keeping assist and blind spot alarms, let me turn them off and remember my settings until I decide to turn them back on, and we have no further problems
Agreed! I hate having to turn shit off every time you start the car. My ioniq 5 has a cross traffic alert and it is useless and dangerous. It’s bricked the car multiple times for no reason.
It’s one of the worst I think. What is amusing is people that drive Subarus get a muscle memory to hit the button when they get in after they buckle their seat belts.
Did you listen to JLH yet?
2024 Gladiator here – my wife has a 2024 Grand Cherokee L – and we both dislike the ASS system (based on some of the comments here, nice to know I’m not the only one who calls it ASS). I’ve already purchased the SmartStopStart module to bypass it and the security gateway extension cables to make it easier to remove if I take it in to the dealer for whatever reason. That set up costs each of us $130 to install on each vehicle, that’s how much we dislike it. Luckily, both vehicles have plenty of other redeeming traits to help us overlook the ASS.
As other users described, even if the reasons are ultimately altruistic, this system multiplies start up wear on engine components drastically. It’s a net-negative and creates issues with other charging system parts as well. I prefer to consolidate trips, drive less, or drive more conservatively to reduce greenhouse gases, than some Rube Goldberg system like ASS.
Fellow GCL driver here – agreed the ASS is pretty terrible. I forget to turn it off, then get annoyed when it catches me out. In suburban driving it doesn’t activate much so it’s not enough of an annoyance for me to get something that permanently deactivates it, but in stop and go traffic that deactivate button gets pressed real quick.
Shame is I like the idea in theory, but without some kind of hybrid setup it seems they’re all bad.
So American factories, that would have produced thousands of decent jobs for Americans, are being casually discarded because they were approved under the previous administration. At least people who buy full-size pickups and SUV’s get enough back on their taxes every year to take the family out to dinner at Longhorn as long as the kids don’t order off the adult menu. So much winning!
Progress is irrelevant as long as you get to own the Libs
> participation trophy
Is a little more than that. It’s loaded language, meant to punch outward in any direction at any person or entity that is recognized unduly for showing up – i.e., participating – without having achieved or done any thing of note or accomplishment.
At first, it seems reasonable enough – that’s not how trophies (awards, rewards, etc, actually function) but it’s become a conservative dog-whistle for “something I don’t like is receiving recognition” and has little to nothing to do with being awarded/rewarded simply for showing up as was the bare minimum (i.e., participating).
I suspect you know that and digging into it in the post was more than you wanted, but it’s also extremely important not to carry water/sanewash/rationalize propaganda and coded language and those who use it.
I’m fairly surprised Zeldin didn’t manage to slip “woke” in there. He had two whole sentences!
Without making a value judgment about whether and where to draw that line, I think it’s extremely difficult to cover cars right now in a politically neutral way, and I think this site is trying to do so as best they can – to focus on the cars, on car culture, and on car enjoyment. Again, I’m not saying whether I think that’s the right position given current events, but it might be the only way to stay even plausibly focused on the cars themselves.
I agree, but with a twist: reality isn’t neutral. Dragging the frame of reference (Overton window) to the right and to the right and then some more to the right, we get increasingly mealy-mouthed demurrals in the face of insidious subversions of cultural, policy, and what even constitutes a greater or social good, and drifts further and further away from reality.
A poster on another site I frequent had a keen example (paraphrased):
“If Republicans tried to pass a bill today saying that the sun is square, the New York Times tomorrow would write ‘Republicans and Democrats Can’t Agree on the Shape of the Sun.”
This is exactly what’s playing out with “woke,”, “DEI,” “participation trophy,” “climate change,” “bias,” “censorship,” and so much more – so much so that many of those things are completely inverted from their actual meaning.
By advocating perfect, yet subjective neutrality in the face of adversity – in this case a literal fascist dictatorship seizing power – you are unequivocally ceding ground to those powers.
Whether it’s cars or crops or health or anything else that humans do or interact with, political actuality is increasingly out of step with objective reality, and that’s before we even get into actual (or at least traditional) conservatism, like a smaller government, lower taxes, increased privatization, etc. The Director of HHS just swam in literally toxic water. Calling it a “Cool Dip in a Local Stream” (made up headline as far as I know) is so misleading it’s a lie by omission. We should not extend the grace of impartiality to those who would take away our ability to speak given the chance.
Bobby Junior up to his neck in toxins and fecal bacteria is a pretty good metaphor for our political system right now, as is the fact that he’ll probably survive it. Cockroaches are notoriously tough to kill.
I agree with this, for the most part. The most steel man argument I can make against it is this: you have battlegrounds and you have other places. As someone else noted here, none of this makes sense except to “own the libs”, which is a thing you do when you don’t think of the “other side” as people. Creating places for us to share our humanity – to at least temporarily see each other as not opponents but full-featured humans and potential friends – can have an impact.
Again, that’s the best steel man I can do, and I absolutely understand what you’re saying – although I’ll say as someone currently on vacation due to emotional burnout, I do also appreciate having some port in the storm right now, and would advocate for that as well.
“that’s not how trophies (awards, rewards, etc, actually function)”
Actually is. Both my nephews and nieces received participation trophies for sports ball games played against opposing teams. They also generally do not keep score, so everyone is a winner.
How that ever got held against the generation of kids who grew up with it, as opposed to the generation of parents who insisted on it, I’ll never know.
Auto stop-start is just fine on hybrids, but it’s positively lousy on ICE-only cars.
When I was shopping for my CX-5, I specifically avoided trims/years with auto stop start. Not only is it annoying, but it only adds 1mpg (per EPA numbers). Not worth it.
I haven’t driven a car with it, but I’ve been in them and see them all the time. I was just thinking these exact words really hard, so this typing thanks saves me the time of typing them.
They really just look and seem erratic and awful, and starting up the engine for a creep forward one to five times at a red light seems so much worse than letting it idle (until the light or stoppage is sufficiently long).
I don’t mind stop-start much as a DRIVER. But as a fellow traveler, it’s really unsettling to hear cars near you constantly roaring to life. Maybe if I had grown up with it, I’d be accustomed to it…but as a 30-year driver, it just screams “something is wrong!” and I viscerally react.
What’s worse is on manual transmissions. To me, the engine shutting off only means one thing: You just stalled, and your brain reflexively goes into restart mode. So when I’m driving a manny tranny, I tend to hold the clutch pedal down (ie, clutch out) which tends to override the system.
I also disabled the cylinder deactivation in our Odyssey due to longevity concerns. I’m not sweating 1mpg on the highway in exchange for better response and an engine that won’t die prematurely. If I drove 30k+ miles on the highway, I’d maybe reactivate it. Just like if I drove several hours a day in stop-and-go traffic, I might like start/stop for the fuel savings. For 90%+ of drivers, I don’t think either system makes much sense in light of the tradeoffs.
This is interesting. I drive only manual (in the UK) so I have not compared with an automatic, but it became second nature to me. Stop at red light, shift into neutral, foot off clutch, engine stops. As you have to put a manual into gear to go, the restart becomes part of the seamless foot on clutch gear lever to first movement. If I am in creeping traffic or waiting at the front of the queue to pull out I will override it with my left foot on the clutch pedal. And my car will only do stop start if it is warmed up and isn’t working the Aircon hard.
I imagine with an automatic it does feel more like unwanted lag and can cause panic when trying to pull out of a junction into traffic though.
It really is a seamless experience with a manual, just as you described. The best auto I’ve driven for it is actually a Range Rover, because it accepts ‘inputs’, to an extent. If you pull up to a stop but only lightly press the brake, just enough to hold it stopped, the engine will stay on. But, if you firmly depress the brake pedal, the engine will go off. Always made a lot of sense to me. Unlike Porsche, who cuts the engine off before the car is even fully stopped. DCTs also seem to work better than torque-converter automatics, I think because they kind of take a second to get going smoothly anyway.
Interesting, my exact experience was a week in the UK with an Octavia in 2023 🙂
I can see your point about how you’d get used to it. I was coming from not having driven a manual at all for about 5 years. It’s just hard-wired into my brain to not let the car die (if you can avoid it). Now that I think more about it, it makes far more sense on a manual than on all of our automatics.
I also remember how much I love flashing yellow lights before the green, that ensures extra time to put it in gear and let the engine restart. You won’t find those lights anywhere in the States…
Are you telling me you don’t watch the cross traffic lights and/or the pedestrian cross walk count downs?
For the record, the amount of fuel saved is negligible. It’s really designed to cut localized emissions, especially when multiple cars with S/S systems are queued up.
I hate the ASS. It’s poorly implemented in my vehicles. Delayed takeoff from a stop, startling startup if it auto starts and in my turbo engined car the delay before useful power is even greater.
I’d be happy if the Gov mandated that the ASS system would retain your setting. Not having to disable ASS every time I start the car would be fine by me. I’ve already gotten aftermarket devices to disable ASS automatically or I’ve made my own device from various off the shelf components.
One of my cars has a meter that tells you what it thinks you save with ASS. Over 3 months, it recorded 0.2 gal. Doing a little math puts my 10 year savings at 8 gal (~$24). If I factor the price of a 15y starter replacement and a little bit for battery wear and tear, ASS would never pay for itself. Not even close. Simply doesn’t math out in my favor.
The only vehicle I have owned with stop/start is our 2025 Odyssey and I have absolutely no issues with it at all. It really only kicks in at stop lights and not always then as it monitors whether it needs to keep the AC or heat going and doesn’t shut down if it does. It restarts as soon as I ease off the brake pedal and is ready to go before I can move my foot to the gas pedal. If it saves even a little bit of emissions from being released then it is totally worth it.
My only experience with stop/start is my Mom’s RAV-4 hybrid and it’s a non-issue. I get annoyed if it doesn’t stop! I do hear vehicles (most notably Jeeps) at stop lights starting up and it sounds awkward and annoying.
I agree in that the acceptability seems to be in the implementation. My wife’s ICE Rav4 has auto start/stop and it’s pretty easy to modulate the brake pressure to control it.
The only car in the stable that has the auto start/stop is a ’22 Maverick Ecoboost. It is so bad and almost dangerous. I manually turn it off every time I get in the truck, but occasionally I forget. If it shuts off and I need to get into traffic (or an unprotected left turn), it takes up to a second or two for the engine/transmission to spool up and provide meaningful propulsion. Good riddance.
Yeah I have the same experience in my Mav, don’t mind it if I’m on a road with long lights, but frequently turn it off in heavy traffic or in line for a 4-way stop sign or waiting to pull out onto a busy road.
Happily, there’s a level of soft brake pressure where the car is held still but is below the threshold where AS/S will engage.
I will turn it off via ForScan once I get the items required to retrofit factory fog lights.
This is how my gladiator works. If it’s a situation where I’ll only be stopped momentarily or need power quickly I can hold it without it shutting off. If I’m stationary for 20+ seconds I can make it shut off.
The vehicles I have owned with the stop/start have been PHEVs, and that’s really ideal. Even if I’ve used the EV range, there’s always enough left that I can get going on electric without the slightest hesitation.
The handover of electric to gas could have sometimes been better in the Niro, but that’s another issue.
how would you even know on a PHEV?
You know when the EV range is depleted and you hear/feel the engine turn on and off. But there’s always enough battery to get going, so you don’t really have to deal with any lag or anything.
I don’t mind stop start assuming it is a decent implementation. It is one of those items where the fuel savings is likely not noticeable for the individual, but scaled to millions of vehicles the difference is huge, which is why automakers are implementing it. The details surrounding it are interesting. So many have just asked for a latching button, but for it to count at all for automakers averages they either have to not offer a way to turn it off or make the button non latching. If the button latches they might as well have not even bothered and have just added extra expense on a beefier starter for no reason (no stop start won’t kill your starter in a short time span, they are designed for it)
I don’t mind stop/start’s modern implementations. It’s largely seamless, effective, and there are enough warnings and messages so the vehicle operator knows what’s going on. Vehicles are designed for it, and it does save some fuel, as well as reduce the amount of idling an engine does which is generally not the best thing it can do.
Admittedly I don’t have it on any of my household’s vehicles (the newest is a 2018, the oldest a 2003) but many of my customers and some family members have it on their vehicles.
Yes, early implementations were fairly crude and unrefined (but so we’re the vehicles they were attached to), and it’s annoying to have to pay for either a larger-size battery or the separate battery (especially if it’s not as easy to get to as most conventional starting batteries; worst is probably the jeep wrangler JL since it’s a water-resistant box under the hood), and the overall cost probably doesn’t justify the system and batteries.
Yay for fewer emissions and folks getting more comfortable with what is essentially a hybrid functions, as I think hybrids would suit most drivers’ needs without having to go full-EV.
I don’t know of a single person who likes auto stop/start.
Are you reading the same comments here? Several people said they like or are fine with it, and I’m one of them.
Yeah, it’s a Prius, but the concept is the same–ICE isn’t running when it’s not needed.
The fuel consumption is marginal to most of us individually, but if you add up all the cars with it and using it, it’s likely a good dent in the total, especially in urban areas.
Saying you’re fine with something is not the same as liking it.
I mean, I’m fine with the thick A-pillars on my car. I’m fine with its appearance. I’m fine with a dozen other things about it.
It’s a feature to reduce pollution and maybe save you a hair at the pump. It’s not designed to be fun, and that’s okay, as long as it works and is unobtrusive, and in many cases, it’s achieving that.
None of our vehicles have stop-start anymore since our daily drivers are both EVs and “stop-start” on our old Jeep would mean it has a various serious fuel pump issue or something, but we had an early version of it on our Honda Insight years ago, and it wasn’t great.
It wasn’t really the fault of the stop-start system by itself, but in an effort to make the Insight as affordable as possible, Honda’s IMA serial hybrid system was really just an electric flywheel to add torque to the gas engine, and that’s about it. All accessories like the AC compressor were driven off the serpentine belt, so if the engine shut off at a stoplight on a hot summer day, you lost all AC until it kicked on again. Letting off the brake would restart it, but it was annoying there wasn’t a bit more intelligence applied to that system. Like it could have used the external temperature sensor to determine “hey, it’s hot AF outside and the AC has been turned on the last 30min, so I’d better keep the engine running at this 30 second stoplight.”
The contemporary Prius at the time had already moved to separate electrically powered accessories, so it could run its electric AC pump without requiring the gas engine.
That said, stop-start is present in nearly all rental cars I have for work trips, and it’s totally inoffensive. The restart is so quick that the engine is ready to go before my foot has moved from the brake to the gas pedal, and I haven’t experienced the same AC issues anymore.
The GTA 5 video game tribute to Vanessa Carlton’s 1,000 Miles song, called Makin’ My Way Down Town, is a must-see for all car connoisseurs.
https://youtu.be/bdFk35yT0ac?feature=shared
Most of the time, stop/start never bothered me. The Toyota eCVT stop/start is almost unnoticeable.
The only times I hated it were on very hot days when cutting the AC for even a minute was unbearable.
IMHO, the best EPA solution to stop/start is to make the last setting stick until it’s changed. None of this defaulting to ‘on’ after every drive.
the most notice I’ve ever had from stop/start cars has been from the outside and hearing them start back up again, the few times I’ve driven a car with one, I’ve never actually noticed until after the fact.
I first had ESS in a Prius and it made complete sense and was totally seamless. I later had it in a 2017 A4 allroad and the way I was taught to modulate my braking to come to a smooth stop meant that I very rarely had enough pressure on the brake pedal for it to activate so it really never bothered me but also saved no fuel.
My current A6 allroad has the 48v hybrid so it also functions very smoothly but it’s threshold is set differently than the older A4 so I have noticed that it is activating more often. The easy solution with Audis though is just flick the shifter one more time to Sport and its gone.
I don’t dislike stop/start as much as I thought on my Civic, but a lot of that is due to having it on a manual so I have more flexibility. Keeping the clutch in doesn’t kill the engine. That’s also helpful to assess the stop: is the light about to change, how busy is the stop. I’ve seen a couple numbers thrown around as a threshold where it actually saves fuel at being greater than 10 seconds. There’s some longer lights that it’ll cut the engine back on before the light changes. But it also depends on you knowing how the traffic and lights work in an area.
Also helps that the button is right there on the center console so it falls to hand. A switch buried left of the steering wheel wouldn’t be as handy to get to.
That said I don’t think it’s saving a ton of fuel on my small four-cylinder as it would a bigger V6 whatever. And I’d probably leave it off more if it were an auto. With the way I use it, I wouldn’t mind a switch that worked sort of the opposite way – hit it to ‘pause’ the engine more. But all this is more attention than the average driver is probably paying to the lights.
Until the 1986 tax simplification bill, all consumer interest was tax deductible. Car loans, credit cards, hot tub loans, you name it. I assume that was introduced to spur consumption when there were worries that the economy would snap back into a depression after World War II, but that didn’t happen, and the worries that the credit card industry would be harmed when interest couldn’t be written off were, as we now know. just as unfounded.
Regardless, is the domestic auto industry in such a condition that this kind of subsidy is necessary? And (since it’s not clear in this post) would this apply equally to used car loans as well? It sounds like another giveaway proposal, and while I don’t trust the spending policies of the current government at all. I doubt this will pass. At least I hope it won’t.
Yeah and the tax brackets were much higher too. It wasn’t realistically that much higher because of all the deductions but I think the highest bracket paid 90% in income tax before the 2-3,000 deductions they could take to bring it down to 40% or something.
This is not something I would prefer to go back to. The government takes everything and then if you make the approved life decisions they deem are good for you and the country you get to have some of your income back.
This seems like a step in the wrong direction.