On Wednesday, Red State posted an article about the automatic start-stop technology in vehicles installed during the Obama administration. The feature is annoying at best. The technology gives me flashbacks of my high school days when I was driving a 1954 Lincoln Capri with a carburetor problem. The best way to get the car to idle properly was to open up the hood and put a board in to warm it up while the board held something down and even then you couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t stall out when you stopped.
The article reports:
The Trump administration is eliminating Obama-era off-cycle credits that incentivized automakers to install automatic start-stop technology in vehicles, effectively killing what many drivers consider one of the most annoying features of newer models.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin highlighted the victory on Wednesday — building on the February repeal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding — while sharing a Wall Street Journal article highlighting drivers celebrating ‘the demise of the most hated feature in their cars.’
Zeldin mocked the technology as an Obama administration climate zealot “participation trophy.”
“The start/stop concept in vehicles is almost universally DESPISED. So, the Trump EPA has now REMOVED the ridiculous climate participation trophy the Obama Admin created to get this hated feature installed,” he wrote on X. “The incentives for manufacturers to make your car die at every red light and stop sign have now been ELIMINATED!”
The Journal reports that a significant percentage — 58 percent — of new gasoline non-hybrid cars had these universally despised systems installed by 2024.
Why were these systems installed?
In October 2012, the Obama EPA finalized the “2017 and Later Model Year Light-Duty Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards” rule.
As part of that package, the agency created “off-cycle credits” — a regulatory incentive that allowed automakers to earn compliance points toward stricter GHG emissions standards by installing certain fuel-saving technologies. Automatic engine start-stop systems were explicitly eligible for these credits.
Adoption by manufacturers rose sharply after those credits kicked in, from less than 1% of new gasoline non-hybrid models in 2012 to the aforementioned 58% in 2024.
Never mind that real-world fuel savings proved modest and inconsistent at best — many studies showed only marginal gains in typical driving, especially once frustrated owners simply turned the system off or dealt with the annoying restarts.
In a 2011 White House press release, the administration touted the upcoming fuel economy standards, saying they should “spur manufacturers to increasingly explore electric technologies such as start/stop, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric vehicles.”
They should have explored it, realized nobody liked it, and killed it with fire.
Fortunately, Zeldin and the EPA are doing just that. Figuratively, of course.
No more forcing gimmicks on the public under the guise of environmental virtue.
Thank God my husband’s car has an easily accessible switch that turns this feature off. My current car is, thankfully, too old to have this feature!