SOMERVILLE, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — A move could be underway to put the brakes on a new automotive innovation.

About 65% of new cars have a feature designed to maximize fuel economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It's an automatic start/stop function that shuts off the engine when the car is idling and restarts it when the brake is released or the accelerator is engaged.

According to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin though, lots of people hate the new feature so much that he wants to get rid of it by phasing it out.

Meanwhile, some drivers of the new cars with the start/stop switch have been disabling the feature.

Abe is a mechanic in Somerville and said most of his customers are not fans. "Most of the cars that we got here... and have that feature, it gets turned off."

Some people are questioning just how effective the function is.

According to the Society of Automotive Engineers, depending on driving conditions, the fuel economy improvements of the start/stop function were between 7.27 and 26.4 percent in fuel use during testing.

But no matter how beneficial the feature may be, some people, like this guy, just won't like it. "Someone in my late 60s, you get used to certain things, and when things change, you're a little reluctant to want to go with them regardless of the positive output."

The Battery Council International reports the start/stop feature helps remove nearly 10 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. each year.

That's a benefit this driver said makes the new feature worth having. "I think that if it helps with gas emissions and fuel economy, I'm ok with leaving it on. It really doesn't bother me," she said.

Zeldin's desire to phase out the start/stop function aligns with broader efforts by the Trump administration to increase prosperity by decreasing regulations.

WBZ NewsRadio's Kyle Bray (@KyleBrayWBZ) reports.