Mazda isn’t looking into hybrid or electric engines right now. It appears they want to further tweak their current direct injection motors to eat less and less gas. Its new start-stop system promises a fuel economy of up to 10% or more.
The SISS or the Smart Idle Stop System uses direct injection and combustion to start your vehicles while other similar systems rely on an both an electric motor and a traditional engine to start your car.
What SISS does is simple. It will stop the pistons in the optimal poition for an engine restart. Following that it will inject fuel into the cylinders before the engine begins to rotate and the power of the combustion will turn the engine over to start. That will make your Mazda start in 0.35 seconds with a SISS. If the Mazda had an electric motor to restart it, it would have done so in 0.70 seconds or so.
The only downside is that SISS will work with automatic transmission so true stick drivers will not benefit from it in 2009 when it launches.
Tags: fuel economy, Mazda, SISS, start-stop system