Starting the stop/start

They will be making a major contribution to the greening of our new-car fleet as they kill the engine at stoplights instead of wasting fuel and creating pollution as they idle at a red.

I first drove a stop/start car around 1994 when Volkswagen brought an evaluation car to Australia to highlight the EcoMatic technology in its then-new Golf III. The greener Golf never got past the evaluation stage here, and only lasted about 18 months in Europe because of very slow sales, but it was the start of something special.

I can still remember the horror of pulling up to a red light in Sydney's city centre and having the engine die. My instinct was to re-start it immediately, but I resisted the temptation and it fired when I selected a gear as the light turned green.

I had the same mild panic when I drove a stop/start Land Rover Freelander in Britain a couple of weeks ago. As I selected neutral the engine died, but when I dipped the clutch to select first on the green it fired immediately with no drama.

We are all going to have to overcome the same panic in future years as stop/start leads us into a generation of cars with all sorts of new systems. Some will have 'active' alternators which only charge on demand, others will have electric water pumps to cut engine drag, and there will be cars with all sorts of new controls for the power steering and airconditioning. Some will have the lot.

We've already seen cylinder deactivation systems in cars from GM Holden and Honda, which effectively cut the size of the engine in low-load situations, and they will also be commonplace.

Land Rover had hoped to be first in Australia with stop-start technology but is going to be pipped by Mini.

The Cooper D will be in showrooms on May 1 with stop/start and the claim that it is the most fuel-efficient car sold in Australia.

Other makers are likely to follow Land Rover, although Fiat and Citroen have already looked at stop/start for Australia and ruled it out because of the cost.

But the price of fuel is creeping back up again and no-one is going backwards on emissions.

So stop/start is definitely coming, although it is currently only available on manual cars because of the complication of re-starting an automatic which is stopped at the lights in drive. Many companies are already working on a stop/start system for their autos, but it usually involves some sort of special starter-alternator pack and American brands are calling theirs a new form of mild hybrid.

Once the stop/start automatics start to land we are really going to see the dominos beginning to fall.