Doug Newcomb is an automotive journalist who has tested more than a thousand new vehicles throughout his three-decade career.
My dad routinely turned off his car’s engine to save gas when stopped for an extended time at a railroad crossing or drawbridge. This was in the early 1970s, when gas was 35 cents a gallon and he drove a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle without AC or even a radio. It was around the same time that a feature known as auto stop-start was introduced in Japan on the 1974 Toyota Crown. During the 1970s gas crisis, the technology delivered a 10 percent reduction in fuel consumption. The system turns off the engine when the car comes to a halt and the brake pedal is pressed and starts it when the driver releases the brake.
U.S. drivers were first introduced to the innovation through hybrid vehicles, which could automatically shut off their gasoline engines when stopped. It wasn’t until the 2010s that the technology began to proliferate in cars powered solely by internal-combustion engines. In 2023, the Society of Automotive Engineers found that auto stop-start improves fuel economy between roughly 7 percent and 26 percent, depending on driving conditions. Edmunds, an online automotive resource, conducted a test using three vehicles and concluded that auto stop-start delivered an estimated 10 percent fuel savings in city traffic.
At a time of record-high fuel prices, you would think drivers would welcome anything that helps save gas. But some motorists despise it, and so does the Trump administration. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy called it an “idiotic” requirement that “every driver hates.” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin added that his agency “is proudly fixing this stupid feature” by no longer giving automakers incentives to include it on new cars.
Federal greenhouse gas and fuel economy regulations adopted by the Obama administration encouraged automakers to add stop-start. To meet stricter emission targets across their fleet, car companies could earn carbon reduction credits by adding auto stop-start. Earlier this year, the Trump administration eliminated the credit in hopes of killing what an EPA statement called “the single worst feature in cars — auto start-stop buttons.”
But Duffy and Zeldin are wrong to suggest auto stop-start is a requirement and that every driver hates it. I appreciate that it saves gas, especially since it’s above $5 a gallon where I live in Oregon. When it first appeared on vehicles in the United States, JD Power’s Initial Quality Study — which queries more than 75,000 new-vehicle buyers about problems experienced during the first 90 days of ownership — found that consumers reported issues such as harsh restarts. But the number of complaints declined as automakers improved the technology with smoother stops and starts and moved the button to deactivate the feature closer to a car’s ignition switch, a JD Power spokesperson said.
Despite the recent EPA ruling, automakers won’t suddenly eliminate auto stop-start since they work on product planning and production cycles that typically stretch over half a decade. “Start-stop technology has never been federally mandated, and the EPA’s recent action removes regulatory incentives associated with it rather than prohibiting its use,” a Hyundai spokesperson said. “Hyundai continues to comply with all applicable emissions regulations and regularly evaluates vehicle technologies based on customer feedback, regulatory requirements and overall efficiency.” According to JD Power, more than three-quarters of new vehicles produced in 2026 come standard with auto stop-start.
Like many naysayers, Zeldin contends that the mechanism damages a vehicle’s components. “Not only do many people find start-stop annoying, but it kills the battery of your car without any significant benefit to the environment,” he said. According to Kelley Blue Book, modern vehicles with the feature are designed to handle the wear and tear from the engine repeatedly turning on and off. In 2015, the U.S. Energy Department’s Argonne National Laboratory issued a report on the technology and found that, for the typical modern passenger vehicle, having the system activated “will not likely result in additional replacements of starting system components compared to normal use.”
Having tested hundreds of vehicles over the last 15 years with this capability, I find some still produce jarring stops and starts, such as a 2026 Crosstrek Limited Hybrid I recently tried out. But I figure the slight annoyance is a small price to pay given the high gas prices.
Of course, car owners can turn it off each time they start the engine. Or install a device to bypass it and manually shut off and restart the vehicle like my dad did. Edmunds, however, points out, “You can’t get the same effect by keying off your car manually.” That means you’ll sit in your vehicle without AC or other accessories like my dad did, while those of us with auto stop-start will enjoy those things and fuel savings.
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