A method of controlling a stop-start vehicle includes, in response to an engine being in an auto-stopped condition and a signal indicative of a driver exiting the vehicle, maintaining the engine in the auto-stopped condition. The method additionally includes securing vehicle wheels against rotation and reducing a convenience feature power consumption.

An internal combustion engine in which a fuel reforming operation in a fuel reformation cylinder (2) is not executed when a gas temperature of a fuel reformation chamber (23) at a time point when a piston (22) in the fuel reformation cylinder (2) reaches a compression top dead point is estimated to fall short of a reforming operation allowable lower limit gas temperature set based on a lower limit value of a reforming reaction enabling temperature. For example, fuel is supplied from an injector (25) so that an equivalence ratio in the fuel reformation chamber (23) is less than 1. Alternatively, the fuel supply from an injector (25) is stopped. This way, a supply of non-reformed fuel from the fuel reformation cylinder (2) to an output cylinder (3) can be avoided, and knocking in the output cylinder (3) can be avoided.

In a hybrid vehicle, suppression of an amount of fuel consumed for reducing NOx stored in an NSR catalyst and suppression of deterioration in exhaust gas components due to unreacted fuel flowing out from the NSR catalyst are made compatible with each other. Predetermined power source control is carried out in accompany with the execution of NOx reduction processing to supply fuel to the NSR catalyst. In the predetermined power source control, an engine rotation speed of an internal combustion engine is made to decrease or an operation of the internal combustion engine is made to stop, and an electric motor is controlled so as to compensate for required torque. Further, during a period of execution of the predetermined power source control, a lower limit value of a predetermined target SOC range for an SOC of a battery is changed to a value smaller than at times other than the period of execution of the predetermined power source control.

An outboard motor includes an engine, a fuel tank, a fuel pathway, a fuel pump, and a controller. The engine includes a fuel injector. The fuel tank includes an internal space in which fuel is stored. The fuel pathway is connected to the fuel injector and the fuel tank. The fuel pump is disposed in the fuel pathway, and supplies the fuel from the fuel tank to the fuel injector. The controller controls the fuel pump. The controller determines whether or not a start condition, indicating that air has entered the fuel pathway, is satisfied. The controller is configured or programmed to execute an air releasing control to open the fuel injector and drive the fuel pump when the start condition is satisfied.

When an engine is stopped, a rotational position at a time when a crankshaft starts rotating in a reverse direction is predicted based on a rotational position detected by a crank angle sensor. A target rotational position is set within a range of the crankshaft rotational position between a time when the exhaust valve of one of four cylinders in the expansion stroke when the crankshaft starts rotating in the reverse direction is opened and a time when the expansion stroke of the cylinder ends. When the predicted rotational position is behind the target rotational position, a torque applying device applies a positive rotational torque to the crankshaft. At the time when the exhaust valve of the cylinder in the expansion stroke when the crankshaft starts rotating in the reverse direction is opened, application of the positive rotational torque from the torque applying device to the crankshaft is stopped.

It is described a method to control the amount of particulate coming out of a particulate filter for an internal combustion engine comprising: estimating an objective value of the amount of particulate coming out of the particulate filter; determining an amount of particulate trapped in the particular filter, which allows reaching said objective value of the amount of particulate coming out of the particulate filter; and adjusting an amount of particulate produced by the internal combustion engine and/or an amount of particulate burnt in the particulate filter based on said amount of trapped particulate.

Systems and methods for operating an engine of a vehicle that may be automatically stopped and started are disclosed. In one example, a speed at which a vehicle system induced automatic engine stop inhibit request is cleared may be adjusted to permit automatic engine stopping during a wide variety of driving conditions so that fuel may be conserved and the possibility of disturbing vehicle occupants may be reduced.

A method of implementing start-stop in an internal combustion engine, the engine having exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) from at least one dedicated EGR (D-EGR) cylinder. For stopping the engine, the camshaft is locked, and a hydraulic cam phaser is used to cushion the engine inertia. The engine is stopped such that one of the D-EGR cylinders is in top-dead center position. For starting the engine, that D-EGR cylinder is fuel-injected, and exhaust bleed-off performed if necessary.

Control of engine shutdown of an internal combustion engine comprising a plurality of cylinders and, for each of the plurality of cylinders, a hydraulically controlled lost motion component operatively connected to an engine valve corresponding to the cylinder, is achieved when an engine controller determines that shutdown of the internal combustion engine has been requested. Responsive to the request for shutdown, the engine controller initiates or continues cylinder deactivation operation for each of at least one cylinder of the plurality of cylinders. The initiation or continuation of the cylinder deactivation operation for each of the at least one cylinder comprises, for an input to the hydraulically controlled lost motion component for each of at least one engine valve corresponding to the cylinder, operating the input to provide the cylinder deactivation operation for a duration at least long enough to complete shutdown of the internal combustion engine.

A vehicle diagnosis system determines whether a vehicle has an abnormality in a temporal engine stop function or a power regeneration function that negates a greenhouse gas reduction effect of the engine. When the vehicle diagnosis system determines an abnormality, the vehicle diagnosis system provides a notification of the abnormality.