Stop-start technology of Land Rover Freelander
One Land Rover Freelander Prototype stands out from the rest of its kind. If car enthusiasts are excited about how a car moves and performs, this Land Rover Freelander Prototype will have them excited about what it can do when it stops.
The reason behind this is that this Land Rover prototype has been equipped with the stop-start engine technology. This is one of the first cars from the automaker to be equipped witch such technology, making it a really notable prototype vehicle. The stop-start engine system was designed to decrease emissions and improve fuel economy. The prototype technology will be fitted into the standard 2006 Freelander and is scheduled to be commercially available by 2008. This is the first among the many plans of Land Rover to make their vehicles meet the demand for more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly Multi Purpose Vehicles or MPVs.
While the stop-start engine technology is already present in other automakers’ vehicles, Land Rover’s approach to the system can be considered the simplest. While such upgrades would require a complex redesign of the assembly, Land Rover has designed the arrangement of this engine system to comply with existing technology with modifications being kept on a minimal level.
The only modifications done are on the starter motors as these Land Rover parts have been designed with such upgrades in mind. According to auto engineers, the average vehicle is fired up 35,000 times in a period of ten years. But with the start-stop technology, it could increase to as much as 350,000.
What happens is that when one starts up the Land Rover Freelander and goes on the road reaches a speed of 5mph, the vehicle’s software informs the engine to switch itself off the next time hat car is stopped and the gear shifted to neutral. So, when the driver halts the vehicle, the engine will automatically stop.
The air conditioning system is also turned off and the steering wheel is disabled as well in order to help conserve energy. However, the water pump goes on with its normal operations to keep the temperature of the engine leveled. This ensures that the off-road vehicle can hold itself when on a slope while the brake vacuum pressures are also being monitored. However, if the engine falls below working level, the engine automatically restarts.
The engine runs for over a course of five minutes, helping the vehicle improve its fuel economy by 10 percent. When the driver is ready to run again, pressing on the clutch pedal easily restarts the life of the engine.
The development of this innovative system is still in the works. Land Rover has stated that it will still be a long way before this system is ready for use on the road. Land Rover is still working on making the system work faster so that the engine springs back to life again the moment the clutch is applied with little to no delays. The automaker is also working on improving the smoothness to which the engine stops and restarts.
Currently, this system is still being tested on manual gearbox but Land Rover will proceed to developing it on the automatic transmission as well.