New internal combustion engine could boost electric cars

Impressive local company.

 

Absolutely not nonsense.

Electric Vehicles have a very long way to go. They are completely limited by battery technology which currently is highly limited. They additionally are not even green - just shifting the location of pollution to the power plants.

I'm certainly not going to take your option away for a pure EV. But they will for the foreseeable future be niche vehicles.

Until a cab company uses them in mass quantity like they do the Prius, EVs are unproven if not outright failures as Japan's attempt to use Nissan Leafs for its cabs failed.

What I foresee is the failure of Tesla if it doesn't bolt on a gas engine like the Chevy Volt.

 

Even if such an engine was well-proven already, the time & cost involved to actually implement it is so far off, it wouldn't be the slightest bit competitive.

Heck, fuel-cells are exactly that. They've been around for about 150 years. They've traveled to the moon. They've been driven on roads with regular traffic. Yet, they still don't stand a chance of competing.

What makes this worthwhile? The complexities of dealing with liquid fuel and combustion are enormous. Improving batteries and refining motors should be the priority, so engines will be needed less often.

 

Forget bias. How do you know it is TRUE? Fox news said that Germany had more solar insolation (sunlight) than the US, a misrepresentation anyone with a globe and weather records can refute. This isn't a liberal or conservative bias, this is just plain being wrong.

p.s. I will happily retract this, if anyone can show that they retracted their statement (as publicly as the original).

 

Can I see your numbers for that contention, because mine disagree.

If Tesla fails, it will most likely be because it is a small company, and a huge number of things can kill a small company, completely unrelated to the value of its product. Currently, bolting a gas engine on their car would kill the company.

 

This is almost the only technical failure of the Volt, they should have designed a gas engine for it rather than just bolting one on.

 

GM didn't just bolt one on any more than Toyota just bolted their existing engine into the Prius.

 

Actually, they did.
The took an off the shelf ICE that they had in stock.
This was done due to time constraints (self imposed).
If they had taken more time and engineered a generator specifically for the Volt, many suspect they could have done much better.

 

Of course you are frightened. That's what they do. I don't want to hijack this thread, I just hate seeing people rely on sources of information that are cloaked in the trappings of journalism, but without any of its ethical constraints.

 

Does the Volt use an Atkinson cycle engine?

 

Prius was the first mass production vehicle propelled by an Atkinson cycle engine (Otto modified by significant changes in its timing and compression ratio).

 

No, it is just an normally aspirated version of the 1.4L engine in the cruze. It was chosen because it could be brought off the shelf and just stuck in the car. With GM in bankrupcy, they did not have the engineering resources to devote to a better ice back then. They did spend time programming it for trade-offs of nvh and efficiency in the application. They originally planed an engine like ford's 1L 3cylinder turbo. I would think the best choice today would be something like mazda's 1.6 L skyactiv that can run in otto or atkinson mode and has 14:1 compression. GM doesn't make an engine like that right now either but they are close. The fastest least expensive path would be for gm to just buy the best engine for the application, but their is corporate pride in wanting an invented here engine even if it is less efficient.

This new ice idea is very interesting for a range extending generator. It should be low cost, and the variable compression aspects should allow it to be very efficient at higher power levels, but still stay with descent bsfc at low city hp requirements. It needs to get proven first. DOE is funding a start up with a similar ice design, but claims 1/3 better efficiency than current diesels - more than 50% efficiency - using diesel, and much less expensive with pollution control. These are possibilities for the next generation 2018+ phev, not todays.

 

Nice. Definitely aviation is one field where the power to weight advantages to two strokes might be compelling. This is quite a bit different from a phev range extender though where I am guessing SULEV emissions are needed to try and get car pool stickers.

And I guess if we are opening up the world, the most efficient engines running now commercially are two-strokes, and emissions could be treated. Those uber efficient engines are huge low rpm turbo charged diesels, and because they are on ships don't require california emissions.