- Robin Brown Every new car I look at seems to say it comes with
stop/start technology. What is it, what does it do and is it
really important? Stop/start technology is an energy-saving
technology that comes on lots of new cars. It’s a relatively
straight forward piece of equipment to get your head around.
Essentially it switches your car engine off when you are idling,
in other words when the engine is running but you’re not using
it, namely at traffic lights or in stop/start traffic. The
system is triggered when a car comes to a standstill and the
engine is ticking over, at which point the stop/start system
will deactivate the engine once you are in neutral. By turning
the engine off when it is not needed, you are saving fuel and
reducing emissions. The engine will then turn back on
automatically once the clutch is applied and a gear selected.
Older stop/start systems had a noticeable lag after the
accelerator was applied but more recent examples are much more
usable and precise. It’s not the be-all-and-end