ESS and managing expectations

[Oldbear]

I hate the ESS, I can't stand it and as long as my warranty is in tact I will allow my muscle memory to override my common sense and push the stupid A$$ (Feel Good For The Moment) button.

I am not a fan of ESS. With that said, thus far it’s not bothered me. I drove a rental car a few years ago with it and HATED every minute of it. The Jeeps is pretty smooth and so far mine seldom actually “shuts down” (light foot on the pedal). My real concern would be excessive wear and tear and the engine (and starter). Back in auto shop when dinosaurs roamed the earth we were taught that “most of the wear on an engine occurs when starting when oil pressure is basically zero”. While I think we need to do what we can to protect our environment, I do take the whole “global warming” thing with a large grain of salt. I’m an old guy, but I remember no too many decades ago the talk was about. “Entering a new ice age”. The earth’s a big place. One single natural event (Mt St. Helen’s or the Yellowstone fire for example puts more crap in the atmosphere than all our Jeeps combined. Climate change does occur, but it ALWAYS has. Should you doubt it check out The Year with no summer. European waters stayed frozen basically year round, crops failed and folks starved-and this was a long long time before the first IC power plant ever was invented. Face it, the “experts” can’t reliably tell us what the weather will do in the morning. I find it hard to believe they can tell us what it will be a hundred years from now. YMMV

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[daveprice7]

Every damned time I pull into my garage and the engine stops as I am carefully aligning the vehicle into the <8ft opening and trying to feather the clutch at slow speeds while going over the bump at the threshold with an engine that's in the middle of restarting only to kill it or have it lurch because it's freaking out... Or the erratic behavior in traffic with the engine killing itself when I stop for half a second and resume, yaknow, trying to drive, and it sits there unresponsive. It should be latching because it doesn't f-ing work...

Is it worth it to me to buy something to remember to press the button for me? Not really... but I shouldn't have to. I shouldn't have to remember to press it. It would be like having to reconfigure the EVIC with the information I want to see every time I start the Jeep... Or re-set the radio presets; or readjust the driver's seat... it's asinine.

 

[Sean L]

Nah, but compared to my wife's '19 Forester, which I would expect to be a bit more eco-oriented, the JL is like a constant light switch. It's rare for hers to even kick over once.

I was only vaguely aware that Subarus have Start/Stop now. They're generally pretty efficient to start with so I guess they didn't bother to make it activate very often.

 

[emptyminded42]

I am not a fan of ESS. With that said, thus far it’s not bothered me. I drove a rental car a few years ago with it and HATED every minute of it. The Jeeps is pretty smooth and so far mine seldom actually “shuts down” (light foot on the pedal). My real concern would be excessive wear and tear and the engine (and starter). Back in auto shop when dinosaurs roamed the earth we were taught that “most of the wear on an engine occurs when starting when oil pressure is basically zero”. While I think we need to do what we can to protect our environment, I do take the whole “global warming” thing with a large grain of salt. I’m an old guy, but I remember no too many decades ago the talk was about. “Entering a new ice age”. The earth’s a big place. One single natural event (Mt St. Helen’s or the Yellowstone fire for example puts more crap in the atmosphere than all our Jeeps combined. Climate change does occur, but it ALWAYS has. Should you doubt it check out The Year with no summer. European waters stayed frozen basically year round, crops failed and folks starved-and this was a long long time before the first IC power plant ever was invented. Face it, the “experts” can’t reliably tell us what the weather will do in the morning. I find it hard to believe they can tell us what it will be a hundred years from now. YMMV

Wear occurs during cold starts, not during warm ones like when ESS activates. It also won't kick in when the engine is still cold.

As for climate change - we understand the physics of what causes the greenhouse effect and we have measured that the % of the gases that contributes has skyrocketed in the last several centuries. Put 2 and 2 together and it's pretty obvious that more CO2, methane, and other gases would cause the greenhouse effect and if we're dumping more and more into the atmosphere, it will inevitably have an effect. If you're skeptical based on the variance of natural phenomena like solar output and volcanoes, etc. then you haven't actually read the papers and studies that work so hard to quantify and control these effects. To the scientific community it is a settled issue. It's just a matter of optimizing the models to be more accurate - no longer is it a question of how climate change works and how much human activity is contributing.

Every damned time I pull into my garage and the engine stops as I am carefully aligning the vehicle into the <8ft opening and trying to feather the clutch at slow speeds while going over the bump at the threshold with an engine that's in the middle of restarting only to kill it or have it lurch because it's freaking out... Or the erratic behavior in traffic with the engine killing itself when I stop for half a second and resume, yaknow, trying to drive, and it sits there unresponsive. It should be latching because it doesn't f-ing work...

Is it worth it to me to buy something to remember to press the button for me? Not really... but I shouldn't have to. I shouldn't have to remember to press it. It would be like having to reconfigure the EVIC with the information I want to see every time I start the Jeep... Or re-set the radio presets; or readjust the driver's seat... it's asinine.

I don't know why you have so many issues pulling into your garage with ESS. My house is on a pretty decent hill and I have a jog in the driveway to get into the Jeep's bay and I've never had issues with ESS. I just keep the clutch pressed to the floor when I'm coasting into the garage. Never had issues in traffic, ESS restarts before I can even get into first gear, much less let out the clutch.

 

[jeepoch]

Wow, great thread.

For me, it's a pretty cool and interesting dimension to driving. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big advocate in why it [ESS] came about.

Nanny-state, agenda-driven politics is never a good reason. Natural demand from a free and open market should dictate what features are offered (even as optional) if anything at all. Clearly, without the EPA rules on mandated CAFE standards ESS would never have been considered. There is zero, perhaps even negative, customer demand for ESS, just read these threads. What company would provide, let alone promote the product equivalence of a root canal.

My primary gripe is the unrelenting push to force the total demise of the internal combustion engine way too soon. ESS is just a step in that direction. Before letting your blood boil on my last sentence, yes the IC engine's days are numbered. Certainly a very good scientific probability, unless we can 'safely' find an alternative fuel. Hydrogen is clearly attractive, it's emission is water vapor. But can you recall the Hindenburg?

So we are led (via politics) in subsidizing electrical engine deployments way before it's really ready. Battery technology sorely lacks both the range and recharge time of any tank of fuel, unless you have about a 8 gallon tank.

Products thrive when they're appropriate and appealing. Subsidies are only useful in making initial market adoption and traction. However, I believe there is even a more dubious underpinning to all this.

Just like Edison providing electricity by promoting light, green policies are providing the promise of cleaner power by hyping global warming. Both have the hidden objective of selling (for profit) a controlled commodity; energy. Follow the money.

ESS is all about changing people's perspective as much as achieving any environmental goals.

Only when you can drive several hundred miles on a single charge and refill (or change) the battery in the same amount of time as a current fill-up, (typically several minutes) will an electric vehicle be truly commercially competitive. Until then, the Carbon Tax and CAFE standards with all the other heavy handed governmental mandates are forcing us to swallow unattractive and unwanted vehicle features.

Eventually, maybe even ultimately, these performance hurdles will be overcome. We have to 'science-the-shit' out of this to come up with an acceptable solution.

Furthermore, there is absolutely no concept of 'accepted' science. Even Einstein's relativity postulates are one day likely to be found underwhelming and will need to be tweaked. Anyone who even implies science is ever settled is closed minded on whatever subject they are speaking, including global warming. There can certainly be consensus, but never an absolute outcome; everything is indeed relative. Einstein certainly had the right idea there.

Jay

 

[Gee-pah]

Wow, great thread.

For me, it's a pretty cool and interesting dimension to driving. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big advocate in why it [ESS] came about.

Nanny-state, agenda-driven politics is never a good reason. Natural demand from a free and open market should dictate what features are offered (even as optional) if anything at all. Clearly, without the EPA rules on mandated CAFE standards ESS would never have been considered. There is zero, perhaps even negative, customer demand for ESS, just read these threads. What company would provide, let alone promote the product equivalence of a root canal.

My primary gripe is the unrelenting push to force the total demise of the internal combustion engine way too soon. ESS is just a step in that direction. Before letting your blood boil on my last sentence, yes the IC engine's days are numbered. Certainly a very good scientific probability, unless we can 'safely' find an alternative fuel. Hydrogen is clearly attractive, it's emission is water vapor. But can you recall the Hindenburg?

So we are led (via politics) in subsidizing electrical engine deployments way before it's really ready. Battery technology sorely lacks both the range and recharge time of any tank of fuel, unless you have about a 8 gallon tank.

Products thrive when they're appropriate and appealing. Subsidies are only useful in making initial market adoption and traction. However, I believe there is even a more dubious underpinning to all this.

Just like Edison providing electricity by promoting light, green policies are providing the promise of cleaner power by hyping global warming. Both have the hidden objective of selling (for profit) a controlled commodity; energy. Follow the money.

ESS is all about changing people's perspective as much as achieving any environmental goals.

Only when you can drive several hundred miles on a single charge and refill (or change) the battery in the same amount of time as a current fill-up, (typically several minutes) will an electric vehicle be truly commercially competitive. Until then, the Carbon Tax and CAFE standards with all the other heavy handed governmental mandates are forcing us to swallow unattractive and unwanted vehicle features.

Eventually, maybe even ultimately, these performance hurdles will be overcome. We have to 'science-the-shit' out of this to come up with an acceptable solution.

Furthermore, there is absolutely no concept of 'accepted' science. Even Einstein's relativity postulates are one day likely to be found underwhelming and will need to be tweaked. Anyone who even implies science is ever settled is closed minded on whatever subject they are speaking, including global warming. There can certainly be consensus, but never an absolute outcome; everything is indeed relative. Einstein certainly had the right idea there.

Jay

Jay, your well received points are only surpassed by your ability to express them. Here's my respectful counter to some:

• I completely agree that market forces are the best way of determining price under most situations. There are though two generally recognized exceptions. The first are where a good or service experiences naturally decreasing average cost (NDAC), the classic example being a utility. Here it makes sense for one vendor (or government) in an area, at astronomical cost, to build the infrastructure (wires/poles/[sub]stations) which spread over more customers reduces NDAC, have a monopoly, and is regulated.
• The second is where using a good or service contributes good or bad to the world around us, and that good or bad isn't compensated for in the price (positive and negative externalities the PHd's call it). Factoring in the cost of cleaning the air damaged by it, gasoline *might* fairly be $12.75/gallon. Then, market forces can naturally occur. But until then, market forces aren't incentivized enough for consumers to switch to alternative fuels. ...something you clearly understand and know from the above. Government stepping in becomes the lessor of all evils.
• And you're right on electric vehicles just not being there yet in terms of things like range before refuel and a host of other things. One might make the case though that this is precisely why market forces need to be skewed to people buying such tech, even, yes, before it's prime time, so research dollars to innovate has chance of being recouped in sales.
• And true, much of science is subject to the level of our understanding and therefore subject to change. Global warming may not be as simple as we think man's contribution to it is. But we can't wait to find out, after it's too late, that we in fact did it to ourselves when we should've (IMHO) gotten on this problem 20 years ago.
  

 

[nostatic]

Part of the problem with an economic analysis is how one factors environmental impact into the equation. One could argue that gas should cost an order of magnitude more per gallon. At this point electric car options are subsidized and "artificially low." Could argue that gas has been subsidized from an environmental perspective and is likewise artificially low.

Society also tends to have a narrow frame of reference. The things in our lifetime are "how it is, and how it should remain." But things change, and often our "this is how it is" is actually the historical anomaly rather than the norm.

Two examples. First is the music industry. Recording technology eventually created a large economic ecosystem, and by the mid 70's there were lots of people making money, including a "middle class" that was supported by the record industry. Then things changed - drum machines, sequencing, digital recording, and then the internet. That ecosystem largely went away very quickly. I have friends who lament the studio gigs they had and the live venues that have closed. If you consider a 10-30 year span, it seems like all was good then poof. If you take a longer view, the "golden era" was actually the anomaly.

Second is our current situation. In 1928 Fleming discovered penicillin and the antibiotic era was born. For the last century, humans have exerted some degree of control over microbes. And for anyone alive today, you've lived in a world where a pill or a shot could save you. Those who did/do research into the science behind antimicrobials know that nature always wins in the end, and society was/is living on borrowed time. Well, that note has come due, and reality is that Covid-19 will be replaced by another viral variant or a strain of TB that is fully resistant or something else. There are many issues behind how and why these microbes are a threat - biological, social, economic, environmental, etc.

As for science, it is true that it is never fully settled. But consensus often is reached and we adjust accordingly. The climate is an incredibly complex system, and we are always increasing our understanding. While correlation and causation are two different things, human impact on the environment writ large is rather undeniable.

The key is always balance. Drill, baby, drill is just as unsustainable as everyone suddenly adopting a tree-hugging 17th century lifestyle. But if we aren't more thoughtful about the former, then we won't have a choice about the latter.

Is our current Jeep-driven "freedom" sustainable or an anomaly that is soon to end? Time will tell...

 

[nostatic]

Science can lead to a consensus. Well, except quantum mechanics, that screws everything up

What ain't science is "feeling ways about stuff."

 

[Archie PJ]

Wow!!! When did that little Swedish girl Gretta join the forum??? Radio? Bad analogy; mine comes on automatically where I left it when I turn the Jeep off. Shoes with laces: another bad analogy. We can choose to buy a new pair of loafers, flops, etc if we want. Save energy and reduce emissions? How much energy does it take to replace the parts that wear out prematurely due to ESS? Let's look at the long view of the total effect of ESS.

 

[daveprice7]

I don't know why you have so many issues pulling into your garage with ESS. My house is on a pretty decent hill and I have a jog in the driveway to get into the Jeep's bay and I've never had issues with ESS. I just keep the clutch pressed to the floor when I'm coasting into the garage. Never had issues in traffic, ESS restarts before I can even get into first gear, much less let out the clutch.

I'm also downhill, gravel driveway, with a 90-degree turn just before the garage opening, so I'm coming in at a weird angle and the gravel has ruts just before the concrete on the garage floor (filling in with fresh gravel lasts about a week), so I need to give it some gas to get over the hump, and then if I didn't give it enough gas to get all the way into the garage I gotta give it a little more or I start rolling backward (garage floors slope towards the door a little). If during all this, I happen to fully let the clutch out, the ASS kills the engine, then it immediately restarts (or doesn't) when I depress the clutch pedal again. Sure, I could be mindful of what's going on and change how I drive... but, at that point, if I'm thinking about it, I turn the damn thing off. In all actuality, after a year I mostly remember to hit the ASS button at the same time as my garage door opener... but it burns me that I have to do it.

Vehicle "features" shouldn't force the driver to change how they drive just to game the feature to work right. I get the idea behind it, and I'm not opposed to it... but unless they can implement it in an intelligent way that doesn't constantly make mistakes, it should be an elective feature.

 

[emptyminded42]

Wow, great thread.

For me, it's a pretty cool and interesting dimension to driving. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big advocate in why it [ESS] came about.

Nanny-state, agenda-driven politics is never a good reason. Natural demand from a free and open market should dictate what features are offered (even as optional) if anything at all. Clearly, without the EPA rules on mandated CAFE standards ESS would never have been considered. There is zero, perhaps even negative, customer demand for ESS, just read these threads. What company would provide, let alone promote the product equivalence of a root canal.

My primary gripe is the unrelenting push to force the total demise of the internal combustion engine way too soon. ESS is just a step in that direction. Before letting your blood boil on my last sentence, yes the IC engine's days are numbered. Certainly a very good scientific probability, unless we can 'safely' find an alternative fuel. Hydrogen is clearly attractive, it's emission is water vapor. But can you recall the Hindenburg?

So we are led (via politics) in subsidizing electrical engine deployments way before it's really ready. Battery technology sorely lacks both the range and recharge time of any tank of fuel, unless you have about a 8 gallon tank.

Products thrive when they're appropriate and appealing. Subsidies are only useful in making initial market adoption and traction. However, I believe there is even a more dubious underpinning to all this.

Just like Edison providing electricity by promoting light, green policies are providing the promise of cleaner power by hyping global warming. Both have the hidden objective of selling (for profit) a controlled commodity; energy. Follow the money.

ESS is all about changing people's perspective as much as achieving any environmental goals.

Only when you can drive several hundred miles on a single charge and refill (or change) the battery in the same amount of time as a current fill-up, (typically several minutes) will an electric vehicle be truly commercially competitive. Until then, the Carbon Tax and CAFE standards with all the other heavy handed governmental mandates are forcing us to swallow unattractive and unwanted vehicle features.

Eventually, maybe even ultimately, these performance hurdles will be overcome. We have to 'science-the-shit' out of this to come up with an acceptable solution.

Furthermore, there is absolutely no concept of 'accepted' science. Even Einstein's relativity postulates are one day likely to be found underwhelming and will need to be tweaked. Anyone who even implies science is ever settled is closed minded on whatever subject they are speaking, including global warming. There can certainly be consensus, but never an absolute outcome; everything is indeed relative. Einstein certainly had the right idea there.

Jay

Except that entire premise is entirely flawed. The "free market" explicitly ignores all environmental impacts until it undermines business to the point of not being able to function. That was explained easily in Econ 101. Maybe even in high school. Without government regulations the environment will be destroyed by business interests. It costs money to control pollution, collect and recycle oil, and not dump toxins into waterways, etc. so business don't do it unless they are forced to. Who forces companies to do anything aside from the government? Don't tell me consumers - they keep supporting Wal-Mart instead of local shops because their bag of chips is 25 cents cheaper than it was at the family-owned grocery store.

Of course there's no absolutes in science - that's how science works. You test and test and test your ideas until the evidence is so overwhelming that it becomes theory. Until that point you are building consensus. Consensus is science and anyone who disagrees just doesn't understand science at all. Even once theories are established people will keep testing them and trying to prove them wrong or perfect them. It's not a religion - people are always questioning its findings and trying to search for a better, more complete, and more accurate explanation for things.

Hydrogen won't work as a fuel. Storing it is a nightmare - hell, we use a larger particle, helium, to detect high-vacuum leaks. Hydrogen is even smaller. The idea that transport and storage of hydrogen could possibly be implemented at scale is insane to me not to mention containing it in a vehicle in any reasonably safe or weight-efficient manner. So I definitely agree with you there.

 

[aldo98229]

Except that entire premise is entirely flawed. The "free market" explicitly ignores all environmental impacts until it undermines business to the point of not being able to function. That was explained easily in Econ 101. Maybe even in high school. Without government regulations the environment will be destroyed by business interests. It costs money to control pollution, collect and recycle oil, and not dump toxins into waterways, etc. so business don't do it unless they are forced to. Who forces companies to do anything aside from the government? Don't tell me consumers - they keep supporting Wal-Mart instead of local shops because their bag of chips is 25 cents cheaper than it was at the family-owned grocery store.

Of course there's no absolutes in science - that's how science works. You test and test and test your ideas until the evidence is so overwhelming that it becomes theory. Until that point you are building consensus. Consensus is science and anyone who disagrees just doesn't understand science at all. Even once theories are established people will keep testing them and trying to prove them wrong or perfect them. It's not a religion - people are always questioning its findings and trying to search for a better, more complete, and more accurate explanation for things.

Hydrogen won't work as a fuel. Storing it is a nightmare - hell, we use a larger particle, helium, to detect high-vacuum leaks. Hydrogen is even smaller. The idea that transport and storage of hydrogen could possibly be implemented at scale is insane to me not to mention containing it in a vehicle in any reasonably safe or weight-efficient manner. So I definitely agree with you there.

Well, you clearly have a LOT to say for someone who calls himself “empty minded”...

Another drawback of hydrogen that hardly ever gets discussed: you need to burn some sort of fuel to split it up from oxygen before you can even store it.

Certain powertrain technologies offer key advantages in certain applications. I believe we won’t get rid of any one fuel entirely. At least not for a long time. Instead, we will have a more diverse source of fuels —i.e., fossil based, electric, hydrogen, etc.— for different applications —e.g., buses, freight trucks, ships, locomotives, power plants, airplanes, automobiles, etc.

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