Quote:
Originally Posted by savefuel
I'd like a system where the driver cuts the engine but the restart is automatic (eg. when hitting the accelerator). As no manufacturer offers this I prefer hybrids or do it manually on my ICE.
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It's been a long time since I owned
my 2000 Honda Insight hybrid or
my 2004 Prius, but I added a manual kill switch to both.
With the Insight, the automatic stop/start system remained functional... but I almost ALWAYS stopped the engine well before the computer would have, and at higher road speeds.
Man, I miss that car! Amazingly efficient.
The Prius kill switch turned out to be more useful than I was expecting:
It was essentially just an "EV mode" switch (which was present from the factory in the Prius in other countries outside of Canada/US).
The factory programming for the Prius stop/start was far better than Insight's at stopping the engine when not needed. So I thought at first the manual over-ride EV switch wouldn't be much of an efficiency advantage,
but it turned out I used it a lot. Mostly because the Prius wouldn't shut the engine off unless the car had completed at least one full stop (among other conditions) after start-up.
Man, I miss that car.
