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MUNICH; Germany — The demand for "greener" vehicles will trigger a boom for modified starters. Strategy Analytics forecasts high annual growth rates.
Modified starters, one of the core ingredients of micro hybrid drives for cars, will grow at a speed of up to 46 percent per year during the time frame from 2008 through 2015. Belt-driven alternators which are used in start-stop systems for conventional cars, will also add up to 35 percent annually.
Stop-start systems enable fuel consumption savings and reduce emissions by automatically shutting down engines when vehicles are stopped for traffic lights or during heavy congestions. Car vendors claim the systems reduce fuel consumption by up to 10, in some cases to 12 percent. Tier one Bosch announced in July to have half a million such systems supplied to BMW and its subsidiary Mini alone. Bosch had started shipments in 2007. Competitor Valeo recently has announced to supply more than a million systems to PSA Peugeot-Citroen by 2011.
"Despite the onset of proposed Californian and European carbon dioxide mandates and the new 35 mpg US federal requirement coming in 2020, OEMs were struggling to promote stop-start acceptance by customers", noted Strategy Analytics Automotive Electronics Analyst Kevin Mak. "Recent design improvements have enabled progress towards volume production while fleet CO2 targets have encouraged car makers to pass on these economies of scale savings to customers." As an instance, Mak referred to BMW which offers stop-start as standard in its 1-Series.
According to Strategy Analytics, offering stop-start systems in their cars enables OEMs to reduce fuel consumption and emissions faster and at lower cost than by depoloying mild and full hybrid powertrains in niche models.
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