EPA deregulation to kill Auto Start Stop (ASS)?

[michelle227]

You're misrepresenting the linked materials. Please don't do that. The Edmunds test does BOTH with A/C off and A/C on. Even with a car with a tiny motor (a Mini Cooper), they still showed a 3% increase in mileage (and, they also saw gains of up to 11% with it off). And, both tests are valid and indeed "real world", because the vast majority of vehicles don't use A/C all the time. Most people (in the U.S.) live in drive in places where it's only needed about 1/4 of the year and even in that time not always needed (like at night).

Of course, I only include the AAA and Edmonds tests as a supplement to the SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) test, which is done much more rigorously.



You are trying to spin that statement to mean something it doesn't. Of course SOME driving styles won't see any benefit. Do you only drive your vehicle on the highway and rarely ever see a stop light? Not gunna see any improvement, for obvious reasons.

That does not mean that if you drive your vehicle in a more statistically average way that you won't see savings.



More misrepresentation. It ain't fractional percentages.



I don't really care if you use it or not. I am only participating here because there's lot of disinformation about it. Like the misrepresentations I've noted from you.

Personally, I like being out in nature, and I like being able to have bigger engines but still minimizing the environmental impact I have on nature and the impact on my wallet. If you have the factual information and still decide it's not for you.. well that's your choice.

[/QUOTE]
There was no 'misrepresentation' in there. I went and looked at the links. They simply don't support many of your claims.

I would go and pull direct quotes, but you wouldn't pay attention to them as it gets in the way of virtue signaling.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, buys certain vehicles like a Bronco for fuel mileage. And yes, the 'savings' (where they MIGHT exist, but who is buying a Bronco to drive in the inner-city anyhow) ARE de minimis.

Maybe a small percentage of people in places where fuel remains insane, partly due to State tax, might save a few bucks. But trying to claim ASS is some huge money saver is even worse than those that were doing the calculus on the F-Series almost 30 years ago to find the break-even point on paying the premium for the PowerStroke over the V10.

I'd dare opine that even those here whose use case is mall crawling daily driver simply don't care if they get 18mpg instead of 17 (which allows for perhaps a 5.x% increase). I'm generally paying about two bucks a gallon if I fill up in Amarillo vs a quarter more here in my rural part of north Texas. Even ethanol-free 91 is barely three bucks...I get better mileage in the Spider with it, but sometimes the spread vis up to 10% means it isn't the prudent fiscal decision. But a few bucks a month doesn't move the needle, just like it won't once the Bronco arrives in a few weeks.

My daily drive is less than 25 miles with four or five lights and speeds anywhere from 35 to 75. I don't expect the brick to win fuel mileage awards and I don't like the nanny intrusions...at least in the now-departed F-Type, owners could simple remove the ASS battery (moot point on the manual anyhow since it didn't work on them to begin with).

Bronco customers should not have to risk breaking the dash to installation bypass for something that never should have been there unless a customer ordered it. And there is zero reason, given computer controls, for it NOT to remember a setting just as the radio remembers the station you had it set to.

Like I said before, tree-huggers are free to use it but their desires should never be forced upon others...for the rest of us, it isn't the money-saver you assert it to be, and anyone else that reads the links you posted will arrive at similar conclusions!

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[CarmeloS]

There was no 'misrepresentation' in there. I went and looked at the links. They simply don't support many of your claims.

I would go and pull direct quotes, but you wouldn't pay attention to them as it gets in the way of virtue signaling.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, buys certain vehicles like a Bronco for fuel mileage. And yes, the 'savings' (where they MIGHT exist, but who is buying a Bronco to drive in the inner-city anyhow) ARE de minimis.

Maybe a small percentage of people in places where fuel remains insane, partly due to State tax, might save a few bucks. But trying to claim ASS is some huge money saver is even worse than those that were doing the calculus on the F-Series almost 30 years ago to find the break-even point on paying the premium for the PowerStroke over the V10.

I'd dare opine that even those here whose use case is mall crawling daily driver simply don't care if they get 18mpg instead of 17 (which allows for perhaps a 5.x% increase). I'm generally paying about two bucks a gallon if I fill up in Amarillo vs a quarter more here in my rural part of north Texas. Even ethanol-free 91 is barely three bucks...I get better mileage in the Spider with it, but sometimes the spread vis up to 10% means it isn't the prudent fiscal decision. But a few bucks a month doesn't move the needle, just like it won't once the Bronco arrives in a few weeks.

My daily drive is less than 25 miles with four or five lights and speeds anywhere from 35 to 75. I don't expect the brick to win fuel mileage awards and I don't like the nanny intrusions...at least in the now-departed F-Type, owners could simple remove the ASS battery (moot point on the manual anyhow since it didn't work on them to begin with).

Bronco customers should not have to risk breaking the dash to installation bypass for something that never should have been there unless a customer ordered it. And there is zero reason, given computer controls, for it NOT to remember a setting just as the radio remembers the station you had it set to.

Like I said before, tree-huggers are free to use it but their desires should never be forced upon others...for the rest of us, it isn't the money-saver you assert it to be, and anyone else that reads the links you posted will arrive at similar conclusions!
[/QUOTE]

And as I said, should be something we’re asked if we want or the dealer quietly deletes for us

only vehicles A.S.S. Makes sense are sissy hybrids anyway

 

[MilesTeg]

There was no 'misrepresentation' in there. I went and looked at the links. They simply don't support many of your claims.

I would go and pull direct quotes, but you wouldn't pay attention to them as it gets in the way of virtue signaling.

Here's your direct quotes from the sources you are so clearly desperate to misrepresent: Here's what the author of the Edmonds paper summarizes their own work: "

The engineers we asked about potential fuel savings always spoke in terms of a range of 3-10 percent, with some venturing as high as 12 percent. The wide span accounts for the variety of driving conditions out there. People who pause briefly at four-way stops have less to gain than those who sit idle at numerous long signals. The longer you sit, the more you save.

It boils down to this. If your car usually manages 20 mpg in the city, it could earn 22 or 23 mpg if it had a stop-start system."

The specific findings were (summarized):

* Small/turbo engine vehicles saw a 9.5% increase with no A/C
* The Large engine (V8 Jag) saw a 10.9% increase with no A/C
* Only one very small engine (1.5L Turbo, 3 cylinder) was tested with A/C, and got 2.9%. Of course a tiny hampster engine (that's already EXTEMELY efficient for a gas engine and will struggle to run an A/C compressor at idle) is going to have much lower benefit in that scenario.

AAA,'s, which is much lighter on details, summary of its findings:

" New research from AAA shows that automatic stop-start automotive technology delivers a significant fuel economy benefit. Test results indicated that automatic stop-start systems provide a five percent to seven percent improvement in fuel economy and reduction in carbon dioxide emissions compared with tests conducted on the same vehicle with the automatic stop-start system disabled. "

AAA also used two small car engines and one V8.

Those two sources are from more than a decade ago and is skewed heavily toward small engine vehicles. The SAE test, conducted in 2023, provides a more rigorous test using systems with a decade of refinements. It's conclusions were:

Four vehicles were tested both with and without the feature enabled under three test cycles: the Federal Test Procedure (FTP) city fuel economy test, the US06 high acceleration aggressive driving schedule that is often identified as the “Supplemental FTP” driving schedule, and the EPA New York City Cycle (NYCC). The results were compared to measure the fuel economy and consumption effects of using the auto stop-start feature. It was found that the fuel economy improvement varied significantly between drive cycles depending on the amount and percentage of idle time during the test. The largest fuel economy improvements were 7.27% and 26.4% for the FTP and NYCC, respectively.

Nothing there to hide. As I've already readily agreed to, your individual benefit will vary depending on your driving style and the vehicle you are driving, but the statistically average driver, who drives a medium size engine vehicle in a city, is going to see about 10%.

Now, you can argue about my napkin math estimate there, but for the average driver in the average vehicle your claim that it's "a fractional percentage" is nothing but a gross misrepresentation of reality (aka: a lie).

...

The rest of your post is a boatload of highly emotionally charged strawmen & red herrings served up with a side ad hominem attacks. At no point have I moralized or virtue signaled about ASS, nor have I claimed that the benefit is universal. Hell, I even have agreed that I don't particularly like it and that it should definitely be a persistent choice.

Since you have proven entirely incapable of conducting yourself in a respectful manner and with even basic integrity, I will be putting you on ignore. Goodbye.

 

[michelle227]

'THE LARGEST' does not mean 'average' or 'common.'

And you hand-wave away that many of us live where the A/C will be used more than 300 days a year.

Go find a tree to hug. ASS is NOT the fuel-saver you wish it was when it comes to the Bronco and most real-world use cases.

 

[Roger123]

* Small/turbo engine vehicles saw a 9.5% increase with no A/C
* The Large engine (V8 Jag) saw a 10.9% increase with no A/C

Seems to me that they were looking for a specific result in not using the AC. I live in VA, my AC is NEVER off (12 months of the year it is on).

What were they trying to hide, why not run with the AC to get an actual result? Not having the AC on my opinion invalidates the test. Why not run both ways unless there was an agenda?

Run that "test" here in Aug and your savings is exactly 0% but that wouldn't "prove" the authors point would it?

 

[Lcubed]

Seems to me that they were looking for a specific result in not using the AC. I live in VA, my AC is NEVER off (12 months of the year it is on).

there are definitely large swathes of the country where AC is not required year round (Alaska, North Dakota, Idaho...)

i still remember the 'first' energy crisis back in the 70's where the gov't was advising that those old vehicles got better gas mileage at highway speeds with the windows up and AC turned on than with the windows down.

 

[crzyhawk]

Data manipulation is why. You can cook all sorts of tests to make them show something you like that does not necessarily reflect how the average user actually uses something. They'll give you a cooked value, and then you'll wonder why you never see those sort of results.

 

[crzyhawk]

there are definitely large swathes of the country where AC is not required year round (Alaska, North Dakota, Idaho...)

i still remember the 'first' energy crisis back in the 70's where the gov't was advising that those old vehicles got better gas mileage at highway speeds with the windows up and AC turned on than with the windows down.

My Mustang pretty frequently sees a boost with the windows up and AC running. Aerodynamics plays a much bigger role in fuel economy than a gimmick like ASS. I can get my freeway mileage up to 24, 25 in the Bronco as long as I keep the speed between 60 and 65. It's almost unsafe to drive that slow these days however.

 

[Roger123]

there are definitely large swathes of the country where AC is not required year round (Alaska, North Dakota, Idaho...)

i still remember the 'first' energy crisis back in the 70's where the gov't was advising that those old vehicles got better gas mileage at highway speeds with the windows up and AC turned on than with the windows down.

Wonder if they ever use defrost in AK, ND, or ID?

From the owners manual:
Note: When maximum defrost is on, the air conditioning compressor may continue to operate even though you switch off the A/C.

 

[Lcubed]

Wonder if they ever use defrost in AK, ND, or ID?

From the owners manual:
Note: When maximum defrost is on, the air conditioning compressor may continue to operate even though you switch off the A/C.

depends on the humidity level.
(spent 30 years as a test engineer in the upper idaho panhandle)

 

[michelle227]

Wonder if they ever use defrost in AK, ND, or ID?

From the owners manual:
Note: When maximum defrost is on, the air conditioning compressor may continue to operate even though you switch off the A/C.

There you go again...bringing facts to the table.

 

[Roger123]

depends on the humidity level.
(spent 30 years as a test engineer in the upper idaho panhandle)

So you're saying that the AC may run year round? Or at least the 6 months of the year opposite of what we do in the south?

Bottom line is that the test wasn't done in a realistic manner, it was done to prove a bias that ASS works.

 

[MilesTeg]

Seems to me that they were looking for a specific result in not using the AC. I live in VA, my AC is NEVER off (12 months of the year it is on).

What were they trying to hide, why not run with the AC to get an actual result? Not having the AC on my opinion invalidates the test. Why not run both ways unless there was an agenda?

Run that "test" here in Aug and your savings is exactly 0% but that wouldn't "prove" the authors point would it?

Why do you think your particular, niche situation is relevant? Very few people live where they need A/C all the time. Most people live where A/C is needed in the summers and that's it. Roughly 1/4 of the year. And even during that 1/4 of the year its not needed all the time the vehicle is being used.

Moreover, even if your A/C is on doesn't mean it will prevent engine shutdown. It depends on how recently the compressor was run. It could be 120F but if the compressor just ran, your A/C will work just fine for a couple minutes at a stop light.

Using only numbers A/C would be a massive misrepresentation of the statistical norm. And to be very clear, ain't saying your situation isn't real -- only that it's not the norm.

 

[MilesTeg]

So you're saying that the AC may run year round? Or at least the 6 months of the year opposite of what we do in the south?

Bottom line is that the test wasn't done in a realistic manner, it was done to prove a bias that ASS works.

The compressor may run because it will remove moisture from the air. Cooling air releases the moisture in that air. (a big part of how a A/C works is removing moisture from the air, and it's why there will sometimes be a puddle of water under your car when the A/C is running). This will mostly happen as your vehicle is warming up to help that water not precipitate onto your windshield as fog.

This does not mean it "runs all year". It means it runs for a little bit cycling your cabin air IFF you live in a place with high relative humidity. If it ran a lot, it would, you know, cool down your car instead of letting it heat up.

And, as to the data presented, this fact is included in the tests that say "no A/C" since it's not a user selectable function.

 

[michelle227]

I find it laughable when West Coasters overlook how many people live in places where A/C compressors WILL be in use more than 300 days per year.

Just this week alone, I have a day where we crack 80 and within 36 hours are going to be under 20 with snow in the forecast. Everyone of those days gets A/C use in a vehicle, either for cooling or for defrost...

And don't get me started on Houston and the 95/95 for half of the year...with 95 being a cool afternoon come August and September...

What i also find hilarious is applauding the testament to shitty traffic control that is NYC. Time the lights better and you aren't idling much...

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