‘i-stop’ is Mazda’s award-winning auto-start-stop system and engineers from the company’s Hiroshima head office are currently in Australia conducting final testing ahead of local launch next year.
Designed for use with direct injection engines, i-stop restarts the engine in just 0.35 seconds – which Mazda claims is about half the time required by other comparable auto start/stop systems. Mazda says i-stop automatically shuts-down the engine when the vehicle comes to a halt – but also positions the pistons in the optimal position for fast restart.
i-stop is part of Mazda’s SKYACTIV technologies – engines and automatic transmissions – due to arrive in Australia next year and which globally will improve Mazda’s fuel consumption by as much as 30 per cent.
