Although stop-start technology has not caught on in America – we blame the EPA’s current testing methods – micro hybrids are already outselling conventional hybrids (i.e. the Toyota Prius) globally by a ratio of 3.5 to one. That ratio, according to Pike, will hit 16 to 1 by 2017.
Pike says that western Europe will account for 98 percent of the three million micro hybrids sold in 2011. Meanwhile, sales of stop-start-equipped vehicles in North America won’t surpass one million annually until 2014. According to John Gartner, senior analyst at Pike Research, by 2020, only a handful of models (mainly subcompacts and performance-oriented vehicles) will have engines that still gulp down gas when the vehicle has come to a stop.
[Source: Pike Research]
