Land Rover’s new fuel-saving stop-start technology will be launched next May.

It will be available on all manual Land Rover Freelander TD4 2.2 diesels.

Land Rover stop-start stops the engine automatically when stationary in traffic and restarts it again automatically.

It’s the first evidence of Land Rover’s £800 million investment over five years in new environmental technology.

“We will reduce the CO2 output of our vehicles without comprising our values,” commented Murray Dietsch, director of Land Rover programmes.

“We still have to have the best vehicles for the toughest conditions.”

Dietsch said stop-start was the first step to a diesel hybrid Land Rover capable of 60mpg and with emissions below 120g/km.

“Downsizing is an important part of our future; we will have more compact, lighter vehicles with greater aerodynamic efficiency, low rolling resistance tyres and electric power steering among a long list of measures,” continued Dietsch.

Stop-start on its own reduces CO2 emissions by 8%, taking the Freelander CO2 emissions from 194g/km to 179g/km.

At the moment stop-start is only available on manual gearboxes but it will also be adapted for use with automatic gearboxes and rolled out in other Land Rovers from around early 2011.

There will be no additional charge for the TD4-e stop-start Freelander, currently priced from £21,325.

Fuel-saving technology for Land Rover Freelander