Land Rover vehicles are not renowned for their fuel efficiency, at least not in a good way. Now that the English SUV builder is owned by India's Tata it has to make do without input from Ford and will have to meet future CO₂ emissions limits without averaging with its former parent. As a step in that direction, Land Rover unveiled a new variant of the Freelander 2 (LR2 here in the states) at the Paris Motor Show. The TD4_e version adds a new "Intelligent Start/Stop" system along with an upshift light in the instrument cluster. When the TD4_e replaces the current TD4 next year, it will also get lower rolling resistance tires.

Because of the high compression ratios of diesel engines, they tend to shudder a bit when shutoff abruptly. Land Rover has incorporated some control changes that ramp down the fuel feed and engine speed before shutting off completely allowing for smoother operation. The engine is shutoff when the vehicle stops, the transmission is in neutral and the clutch pedal released. As soon as the driver presses the clutch pedal, the engine restarts. The bottom line is an eight percent improvement in fuel efficiency from 31.4 mpg to 34.6 mpg (U.S.). Since no Land Rovers are available with diesel engines in North America, we probably won't see the TD4_e anytime soon.


[Source: Land Rover]

BMW has put up a video that does a decent job of explaining the technology that comprises their EfficientDynamics branding. The first model to get EfficientDynamics is the newly revised 120 model, which gets a start-stop system and some rudimentary regenerative braking capability. The host talks to BMW spokesman Chris Koenders at the recent Geneva Motor Show and they step through the different elements of the system.

[Source: BMW, thanks to Linton for the tip]

The new Smart ForTwo diesel will not be the only internal combustion engined car in Europe to emit less than 100g/km of CO2 for long. The next generation of the Daihatsu Cuore will have an Eco model that is expected to be the lowest emitting gas-powered car on the market, at 99g/km. The new Cuore will use a start-stop system that allows it achieve 56mpg. That makes it greener than the Prius which is rated at 104g/km of CO2 and 54.7mpg. The start-stop system shuts off the engine whenever the vehicle stops and restarts it as soon as the driver releases the brake pedal.

[Source: Automotive News - subscription required]

Starting this month Robert Bosch GmbH will begin supplying a new start-stop system to BMW for installation on the updated 1-series. BMW will be selling a variety of efficiency enhancing technologies under the brand EfficientDynamics, that will be standard on the 1-series and include the start-stop system and regenerative braking. The start-stop system uses a modified starter motor that Bosch is calling a Smart Starter-Motor.

The new starter has been beefed up to handle the significantly increased number of starts it will have to make over the life of the vehicle and also improve the performance. The system provides some of the benefit of a full-on hybrid at a significantly lower cost. The new ECE15 driving cycle test requires twelve stops of fifteen seconds over a 4.3 mile distance, and the start-stop system helps reduce fuel consumption and CO2 output by up to eight percent. It's not a lot but for a fairly minimal cost, it's a lot of benefit. Longer stops will result in more engine off time and proportionally greater savings. The only question is how smoothly the system will operate, which hopefully will be significantly better than BMW's SMG transmission. If it's not too jerky it could be a very useful system from a cost-benefit standpoint.

[Source: Just-Auto - subscription required]