this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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Cars are computers. All those fancy features run on software. Software can be patched to get rid of unpleasant functionality.
It’s not always easy, but it’s doable, and the more of these stupid features they add, the more people spend time working on undoing them.
I was wondering more about the auto shutoff.
Oh, sorry. American cars are require to ship with a feature that shuts the engine off at stop lights, and restarts it when you take your foot off the brake. It’s done to supposedly help the environment, which it doesn’t do in the least and is also incredibly irritating.
So car hackers reconfigure their cars to disable that feature.
Got some studies for that? Cause everything I've seen suggested that FAS, forced auto-stop, does help.
It only helps when people leave it on.
It's a small sample size, but literally everyone I know that owns a car with that feature turns it off immediately after starting the car every time they get in it.
It adds wear and tear to a car. The hot engine no longer has coolant running through it, hot oil drains off, etc. This is especially bad for turbos. So now the engine wears out sooner, which means the car is replaced sooner. Pulling a car out of service adds a huge amount of production resources, energy, and waste to an individual's footprint.
There are also calculations that can be done to determine how much fuel is saved. More fuel is burned at startup. You have to be stopped and off for a minimum period of time to reduce fuel consumption. That time is heavily dependent on many factors. But it's been found that generally you're not saving fuel unless you're at a light just as it turns red.
The wear and tear is the biggest issue. The worst thing you can do to an otherwise normal working engine is take it from 0 to 5000+ rpm in such short time.
Can you show me the law that states auto start stop is a requirement?
It’s not explicitly required by law, but that doesn’t make it any less mandatory. It’s one of those “we’re not saying you have to, we’re just saying we’ll beat you up if you don't” rules federal agencies (EPA, in this case) love so much.
Car and Driver explains some of the reasoning here, though they forget to mention efficiency standards that are explicitly mandated.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a19561461/automakers-increasingly-offer-ways-to-deactivate-stopstart-systems-temporarily/
Not all American cars have this. We literally just bought a Honda Civic and it doesn't have auto stop start. That's not to mention hybrids and electric cars. It's implemented by car manufacturers as far as I can tell in order to meet gas efficiency requirements of the NHTSA and it's mostly for larger consumer vehicles. SUV's, and trucks, not your average sedan. I don't think you represented this very well in your first comment.
According to the rental company I use for work travel, I’ve driven 33 different brand new cars this year, primarily sedans and small SUVs, all ICE (not a lot of EV on rental lots). Every single one had the auto start/stop feature.
Vehicles without it exist, especially as you mention full and partial electrics. But I’m perfectly comfortable with how I represented the situation based on my own experiences.
Autostart stop. It's a "feature" of newer gasoline vehicles that allows them to save gas by shutting the engine off when you're idling (at a stop light or similar) until you touch the throttle/gas pedal and the computer reactivates the engine. This assumes there isn't significant load on the battery like there would be if you were using your heat/AC or even the radio.