Halt on stop-start?

The Trump administration may be about to target technology that automatically turns a vehicle’s engine off to save fuel.

Stop-start systems have become a common feature in new cars as a way to save a few dollars at the pump and reduce emissions.

Environmentalists like them because they help combat climate change. On the flipside, some critics find the technology irritating.

Lee Zeldin, administrator at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), took a swipe at stop-start systems this week in a post on X, signalling the agency will take action against it.

“Start/stop technology: where your car dies at every red light so companies get a climate-participation trophy, he wrote. “EPA approved it and everyone hates it, so we’re fixing it.”

The EPA doesn’t mandate stop-start technology, but it provides extra fuel-economy credits to carmakers that adopt it.

Spokespeople for the EPA and Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an industry trade group, have failed to make official comments about what may or may not happen, reports Axios.com.

Stop-start systems eliminated nearly 10 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually as of 2023, according to the Battery Council International. The technology was included in 65 per cent of vehicles in 2023, up from nine per cent in 2016. It can generally be turned off at the press of a button.