Sales of the GM Volt.

[Fusion]

I'm happy I make you frustrated. Your failed personal attacks are sad though.
I'm not Polish, I'm not an engineer, but neither are you, obviously.

And apparently you don't understand the use of sarcasm.

[rwh11385]

I'm happy I make you frustrated. Your failed personal attacks are sad though.
I'm not Polish, I'm not an engineer, but neither are you, obviously.

And apparently you don't understand the use of sarcasm.

Obviously I'm not Polish.

Sorry I just assumed you were by thinking you could ghetto-engineer at home something yourself better than professionals, or like ya know, people who have actually ever studied the subject. Maybe you should Czech yourself before you wreck yourself?

What were you being sarcastic about?

[u3b3rg33k]

Hybrids are a dead end and so are fully electric vehicles.
I see absolutely no reason to prototype and spend money on R&D until battery prices drop. And I mean huge ass drop. Maybe that isn't possible though.
I was just looking at minivans that can be coverted to electric and the price is somewhere around 18k (provided you already have the gas/diesel version) and like 70% of that are the 200Ah cells. It would tak me about 7 years to pay off the price, after that I'd be driving "for free".
This is a major DEAD END (like the falling off a cliff type) and they have to realize that and stop spending their own money and our tax dollars on various funding.

Diesel sucks because the more they make the engines efficient and especially eco, the more expensive the repairs are. Its not like the old generation diesel I have, that has some 250k miles in 10 years on it and still running strong, with minimum maintenance.
French cars have catalysts with additives. Some kind of fluid that cleans the exhaust fumes and should be replaced every 60k. The damn thing costs 2000$ so people just ditch the system and get it erased from the OBC. German cars have lots of problems with injectors and fuel pumps. VW injectors die at around 60k, can't be refurbished, and cost around 900$ each. Usually one takes a dump and the rest follow. Turbos are also prone to die sooner or later.

CNG (stove gas) - dead end.

The only thing I'm considering is LPG. It's used here a lot, costs half of what you pay for petrol and MPG is about the same on smaller engines. Installation is about 1500 bucks and maintenance is the same as with any petrol engine. Those haven't gone through many upgrades in the last decade (except high pressure injection - LPG can't be installed on those yet) so there's not much to worry about.

I'm not an engineer, but I can't believe that there's no way to reduce fuel consumption in current engines to 50%. If I had all the money that was spent on hybrid dead-ends, I'm pretty sure I'd come up with something.

I got your solution right here - put a brick UNDER the throttle. BAM instant fuel savings.

Seriously though you just asked us to take a 33% efficient engine and make it 50% efficient. The only engines that I know of off hand that are near 50% efficiency run on bunker fuel and are the size of a large apartment building. Even diesel engines don't hit the numbers they should in theory - which is why they have dropped the CR so much on auto diesel engines. Most are now in the 16.5:1 ballpark, as opposed to 21:1 from days of old. efficiency plateaus much sooner than you realize (and on that note if you want to run e85, you should probably have a 14:1 or so CR engine to really take advantage of the fuel - not a silly 9:1 v8 ).

sounds like you need one of these:


Funny thing is though, riding a 50cc moped is more cost effective than the human fueled bicycle if you use it every day - even if you're in good shape.

And by the way, electric vehicles aren't going away - look at what Zero has in an electric motorcycle. I'd hit that. Super simple powertrain - rear wheel bearing, wheel, belt, two pullies, (motor) two bearings, (motor) rotor.

That's the whole of the moving parts in the drivetrain - find me an ICE that simple.

[mrsleeve]

^

The lowering of the CR has more to do with the Govts and their emissions regulations than any thing no to mention mandated fuel blends and max octanes ratings. They dont give 2 shits about how much work is being done and how much fuel you are burning to get it done, they only care about what comes out the tail pipe at any given second.

[rwh11385]

Well sleeves, yeah, emissions and efficiency want opposite things sometimes - like efficiency wants high temperature and high temperature leads to higher NOx. So just dealing with regulation is a bit of effort and a constraint, but it's all about compromise and practicality overall too. u3b3rg33k's recent response is great but so was his original with the theoretical vs experimental efficiency curves, and mentioning not wanting shit to break. Something just can't work in one experiment for a short period of time, it has to work for years and hundreds of thousand of miles. Plus, cost obviously as well.

But fortunately, we're highly creative and have invented a lot of stuff that has helped through the years, like variable valve timing to allow for good off-"fun" efficiency while also having moah power up top. Things will certainly be tight between the push for efficiency and the push for emissions, but the technology to model technology with has also improved greatly so we're more capable too. Unfortunately, no one can make laymen understand E85's true value is in high compression or high boost and not just as a drop-in. If only Saab's BioPower concept was leveraged by more automakers then people could see the value (and fun) of it. So adoption and understanding is important too, with consumers seeing the value or importance of new tech.

[Fusion]

Delphi is in the process of development of an engine technology that will improve the fuel economy of petrol driven cars by almost fifty per cent.

http://www.auto-types.com/autonews/delphi-engine-will-boost-fuel-economy-by-half-8704.html

[M-technik-3]

Delphi is in the process of development of an engine technology that will improve the fuel economy of petrol driven cars by almost fifty per cent.
http://www.auto-types.com/autonews/d...half-8704.html

Didn't read but what are they going to bring back the 80's technology of Gdi and all the stuff that companies had developed back in the mid 80's before oil prices plummeted?

We ride this roller coaster about every 15 years.

[u3b3rg33k]

Didn't read but what are they going to bring back the 80's technology of Gdi and all the stuff that companies had developed back in the mid 80's before oil prices plummeted?

We ride this roller coaster about every 15 years.

Going to? GDI is already here:

• 3.0L TFSI Supercharged DOHC V-6 (Audi A6)
• 2.0L N20 Turbocharged DOHC I-4 (BMW Z4/528i)
• 3.0L N55 Turbocharged DOHC I-6 (BMW 335i coupe)
• 2.0L EcoBoost DOHC I-4 (Ford Edge)
• 2.0L Turbocharged DOHC I-4 (Buick Regal GS)
• 1.6L DOHC I-4 (Hyundai Accent/Kia Soul)
• 2.0L Skyactiv DOHC I-4 (Mazda3)

And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of google.

[u3b3rg33k]

^

The lowering of the CR has more to do with the Govts and their emissions regulations than any thing no to mention mandated fuel blends and max octanes ratings. They dont give 2 shits about how much work is being done and how much fuel you are burning to get it done, they only care about what comes out the tail pipe at any given second.

This right here folks.

Let me put it this way - diesel has had a huge advantage in the fuel economy field thanks to the (until very recently) near total lack of emissions standards. fuel injection is inherent to diesel engines (more control than carbs), and computer controlled injection has been around for years before the evil rulebook was.

Gasoline engines had emissions control (1968+) before the widespread adoption of fuel injection (mid 80s?). As such, there was very little opportunity for gas engines to truly explore options such as practical lean burn (gas will burn up to at least 18:1 CR in a normal EFI engine @ operating temp). They've basically been held hostage @ stoich thanks to guess what - emissions control systems that don't work properly unless the engine is running at stoich.

Think of what you could achieve (emissions friendly) with a NOx trap on a gas engine - but that costs a buttload, and no one wants to do it.

FYI, diesel fuel stoichiometry occurs at 14.5:1 - but since the fuel is harder to burn the way we inject it, anything coming close to stoich pukes smoke out the tailpipes. Diesel is usually burned (at partial loads) in the 28-32:1 range. it gets very smokey below 20:1, and IIRC, can be burned anywhere from 3:1 (why would you??) to 42:1 (lean idle - idle is often 40:1)

An important thing to remember during combustion is it's not the AFR of the fuel and air that goes in to the cylinder that matters, it's the AFR where it's burning. diesel is usually injected as a jet (or jets) of some sort, so the boundary where it's actually burning is much richer than the mass average. in a gas engine, it's put in as a vapor, and if that vapor is evenly dispersed (as we've been taught it should be), then the average where combustion is taking place (now the whole volume of the combustion chamber), is more meaningful. This is why lotus realized that with higher pressure fuel injection you could put in less fuel at WOT (running closer to 14.7:1 than 12:1) - and it's the same principle (although applied differently) to bmw's stratified / multi-pulse direct injection (in both diesel and gas engines).

So in short, diesel, both by design and legislation has been able to run very lean without issue - this is where most of the fuel savings comes from, not as much the very high CR (which is required for auto-ignition).

Gas has been restricted by legislation before the tech was commonplace enough to do lean burn, and has been struggling with CARB ever since. (thanks, you cali f**ers)

[rwh11385]

An important thing to remember during combustion is it's not the AFR of the fuel and air that goes in to the cylinder that matters, it's the AFR where it's burning. diesel is usually injected as a jet (or jets) of some sort, so the boundary where it's actually burning is much richer than the mass average. in a gas engine, it's put in as a vapor, and if that vapor is evenly dispersed (as we've been taught it should be), then the average where combustion is taking place (now the whole volume of the combustion chamber), is more meaningful. This is why lotus realized that with higher pressure fuel injection you could put in less fuel at WOT (running closer to 14.7:1 than 12:1) - and it's the same principle (although applied differently) to bmw's stratified / multi-pulse direct injection (in both diesel and gas engines).

So in short, diesel, both by design and legislation has been able to run very lean without issue - this is where most of the fuel savings comes from, not as much the very high CR (which is required for auto-ignition).

Well done sir - it's clear to see you know what you are talking about. We're benefiting from technology that allows us to approach more ideal combustion. (and research, deeper theory, and modeling to optimize such). I'm excited about it all.


And Fusion, I'm pretty sure that a one-cylinder compression ignition is not a "current engine", nor is (25%-30%) x 1.5 >= 50%. Plus, I'd be shocked if Delphi actually did half of what they are promising.

[Fusion]

Didn't read but what are they going to bring back the 80's technology of Gdi and all the stuff that companies had developed back in the mid 80's before oil prices plummeted?

We ride this roller coaster about every 15 years.

Exactly, and part of that rollercoaster are always expensive EVs in one form or another.

rwh: You're usually the one hammering people for not reading and being ignorant...

It is also going to begin tests on a multi-cylinder engine which will be close to an actual production engine.

I'm not saying this is the solution. But various things are being worked on and nothing is entirely impossible if a company is willing to invest in them.

[rwh11385]

Exactly, and part of that rollercoaster are always expensive EVs in one form or another.

rwh: You're usually the one hammering people for not reading and being ignorant...


I'm not saying this is the solution. But various things are being worked on and nothing is entirely impossible if a company is willing to invest in them.

Sorry I missed the single line.

Unless, of course... it has anything to do with EVs, hybrids, or CNG, right?

So said the smartest Czech non-engineer.

[Fusion]

I decided pretty certainly I did not want to be an engineer as a career, and feel very strongly that I want to enjoy my job, so I chose to change over to business, as I love economics and business and shit.

We can't all be experts at everything ;)

[Wiglaf]

Delphi is in the process of development of an engine technology that will improve the fuel economy of petrol driven cars by almost fifty per cent.
http://www.auto-types.com/autonews/d...half-8704.html

So let me get this straight: they are running high diesel-like compression but using normal gas, and getting around pre-detonation by using direct injection to not inject the gas until it's blow time.

Correct me if i'm wrong but wasn't that half of why direct injection was supposed to be awesome in the first place? I realize this is another area where people aren't jumping in with both feet but am I missing something? This is like 2+2 shit, not a cutting edge breakthrough.

[Fusion]

It would probably be much better with ethanol, although personally I'm glad they're not going that route considering how we currently make ethanol and subsidize it.