Automatic Start/Stop

It was a great engineering feat brought into action by top European car makers, the likes of BMW and Audi a few years ago to improve the fuel consumption of their high performance engines and, thereby, conform to European efficiency norms. 

However, in the Indian context this technology has proven quite handy and is growing in demand and use, at least amongst the entry level luxury sedans, such as the Volkswagen Passat with BlueMotion Technology. Basically, this technology helps you conserve precious fuel and saves you the trouble of manually killing your engine when your car is frequently forced to idle.

In a car with an automatic gearbox (or a dual-clutch system like DSG), there are two options; when you pull to a stop and have your foot on the brake, if the car hasn’t moved for a small time delay, say at a red light, the engine cuts off and restarts itself when you take your foot off the brake and put it on the throttle pedal.

The other option is when you need to slot the automatic gearbox in ‘N’ (neutral) for the engine to shut off, which will automatically restart when you engage ‘D’ (drive). A car with a manual gearbox requires to you shift the gearbox into neutral when at a red light to kill the engine, and restarts it automatically when you depress the clutch pedal a second time. 

The new BMW 3-Series that is expected to be launched in India later this year will also feature this unique fuel saving functionality as part of its highly efficient EfficientDynamics technology package. But start-stop systems aren’t just a toy for those who can afford an expensive set of wheels. In India, Mahindra offers a version of the Scorpio SUV, called the ‘Micro-Hybrid’, which features a start-stop system at a very affordable price.