A Start-Stop system will be available on Ford’s non-hybrid North American cars, sport utility vehicles and crossovers starting in 2012, the maker said, claiming improved city driving fuel economy between 4% and 10%,
Previously Ford has downplayed the significance of shutting an idling engine off and restarting it when the brake is released (hence the name Start-Stop), a decades old technology used in Asia and Europe that is now used on hybrid vehicles. Impending fuel economy regulations are forcing the change.
This Start-Stop feature includes more than 170,000 Ford hybrid vehicles, starting with the Escape Hybrid in 2004, then the Fusion hybrid last year in North America. Part of Ford’s hybrid technology is licensed from the global leader in hybrids, Toyota, one of the reasons for Ford’s slow roll out of fuel saving technologies.
Ford now says it will use Start-Stop technology – which has been tweaked and protected by more than 200 patents by Ford – on a concept vehicle that debuts this January at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
However, the global rollout of Ford’s version of Start-Stop is already well under way in Europe. The Ford system, which is already in use by all major automakers, is designed to work on both gasoline and diesel engines, and is now standard on the ECOnetic models of the Ford Ka and Mondeo, and is launching now on the new Focus, C-MAX and Grand C-MAX. The Grand C-Max will find its way into the U.S.
Ford corporate politics and engineering bias prevented this fuel-saving system from an earlier in the U.S.
When Start-Stop appears in North America, it will be available on gasoline-powered cars and sport utility vehicles with either a manual or automatic transmission as well as vehicles that use a dual-clutch six-speed automatic transmission.
The Start-Stop system includes a light on the instrument panel that alerts the driver when the engine is off and a tachometer that moves the needle to a “green zone” when the engine is not running.
