Steam Hybrid Car from BMW 663
RMX writes "BMW is unveiling its turbosteamer hybrid engine, which uses the excess heat in the exhaust system and reclaims 80% of it by powering a steam engine that assists the gas engine. Overall, this gives a 15% more efficient engine; and significant additional performance (power and torque) with practically no downside. "This project resolves the apparent contradiction between consumption and emission reductions on one hand, and performance and agility on the other," commented Professor Burkhard Göschel. Are steam engines the future of environmental-friendly hybrid vehicles?"
Downsite? (Score:5, Insightful)
Additional moving parts, and servicability? How many modern garages know how to service a steam engine?
Real world value ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Downsite? (Score:2, Insightful)
Heat Recovery Steam Generator? (Score:3, Insightful)
Downsides - A few (Score:4, Insightful)
* More parts == higher maintenance (pumps, special catalytic convertor, etc)
*at least 24 ft of piping that may be impacted by even minor collisions
*Steam systems extra sensitive to corrosion from impurities in coolant.
Repairs... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many modern garages know how to service a steam engine?
I would think that BMW dealerships would be able to service BMW autos, no? Yes, I understand the rush to FP, but do you think maybe they'll have this covered by the time they go into production?
I am glad to see some innovation to the standard IC engine.
But I guess it's just easier to sit in your armchair and criticize real engineering...
Re:Real world value ... (Score:4, Insightful)
New every 2 isn't such a problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble is when people buy new cars that are NOT environmentally friendly, those cars also continue to guzzle for as long as they're on the road. If the average vehicle coming off the assembly line were more efficient, then we'd be pushing out the older crap with newer, better stuff. But the average fuel economy of ALL manufactured vehicles has actually DROPPED since the 1990s: from Automobile and Light Truck Fuel Economy [policyalmanac.org]
Re:Repairs... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, the dealership will know how to service it, but that wasn't what I was referring to by "garages". I was referring to those independent garages where you can often get cheaper, better service. I don't take my 1991 Plymouth Voyager to a Chrysler dealership; They're booked solid and will want to replace half the car. I take it to a small guy on the outskirts of the city who comes up with cheaper solutions .
Oh, and fooey on FP. I really don't give a damn; it just happens more often because I'm a subscriber.
Re:It hardly reclaims 80% of the energy (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a much simpler and more effective solution... Go full electric drive hybrid. Decouple the engine from the drive.
So you want to go from:
gasoline->motion->electricty->motion
instead of
gasoline->motion
I can't really imagine that's any more (and probbably less with all those energy form transformations) efficient than the current hybrids. Engine efficiency comes from small engines running at constant speeds. That's already accomplished with the hybrids.
My Beamer is a Steamer (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't you just love /. engineers (Score:2, Insightful)
Geez.
To complex? Compared to what? This is a BMW not some american car. Germans may suck as human beings but they know how to make cars. Cars that actually just bloody work instead of needing to be fixed every ten miles.
To heavy? Compared to what? A giant hydrogen fuel cell? Me thinks BWM engineers would have figured out that adding an old style steam engine as found on trains would not be very effective. Perhaps these engineers already thought of the fact that adding a few hundred kilograms would not make sense so the thing does not weigh a significant amount?
Same with expense. Anyway this is BMW, anything that adds performance (wich it does power performance) is good and they just sell it on their premium models first.
As for hydrogen. Well part of the hydrogen engines are still internal combustion engines and will therefore still produce heat. Same with every fuel source that is burned. This steam engine idea could be used whereever you have waste heat.
It is in itself nothing new, in fact it is extremely old. Steam engines themselves didn't just create some steam put it in a cylinder and then vent the steam. Big engines had up to 3 cylinders. 1st high presure, then a middle pressure to take the waste steam from number 1 and then a low pressure one to take the last bit of energy from the steam.
/. engineers. Pah.
Misconceptions. But this is a GOOD thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course at this point this is just a concept system, it remains to see if it ever makes it into production.
My hope would be to see the steam engine addition connect to an electrical hybrid system, and that the main power source be a low-rev/high torque diesel engine. Do that with dynamic braking, etc. and you might just get an automobile engine that is say, 70% as efficient as the big diesel locomotive engines have been for what, 30 years?
Re:Repairs... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You Hydrogen People (Score:4, Insightful)
And which are signifcantly more efficient than masses of cars spewing less refined emissions, especially nuclear plants.
Essentially your post says "punish auto owners, and reward mass transit users" while completely ignoring the fact that mass transit is impractical in many places and always will be.
Re:Real world value ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Compared to what, your feet? Or compared to a bicycle, or compared to a conventional, pure internal combustion car? And what are the environmental consequences of allowing the exhaust heat to simply go unutilized? Producing gasoline has life cycle costs as well -- are you remembering to subtract those out? What is the environmental impact per mile travelled times the number of miles travelled? The most environmentally effective solution is to reduce the need for high miles travelled, and that would have serious consequences to the established infrastructure of American culture, somewhat less so in Europe, and I have no idea about Asia or other areas. It would be nice if we could address these issues at the source by population control, individual consumption patters, etc, but that's not very reasonable for now. Lacking such drastic measures, it's ill considered to object to manufacturing hybrid engines because metal must be mined when the same things are done to produce gasoline engines and such frivilous items as jewelry and lawn furniture. Unless it's live in a cave or nothing, progress in alternative engines has a better probability of preserving the environment that sticking with technology that's known to be very detrimental.
I'm amazed at the strength of resistence to change many people have, especially on such a technically aware forum as Slashdot. Upgrading human values is probably to most important environmentally friendly changes we can make. Good luck on that one.
Re:It hardly reclaims 80% of the energy (Score:2, Insightful)
This is exactly what modern diesel locomotives do. I'm not sure the reasons for that particular implementation for that application, but it is out there in the real world today, so the idea itself is not without merit.
Re:Downsite? (Score:2, Insightful)
Technology advances, people have to learn new things... This isn't a downside of a steam hybrid engine, this is a downside of technology in general.
Re:It hardly reclaims 80% of the energy (Score:4, Insightful)
Electical motors, on the other hand, are linear: turn up the juice, and the thing turns faster.
The philosophy of using a diesel with electric drive is to keep the diesel engine turning at exactly the right RPMs to maximize efficiency, supplying power to the electrical drive as needed. This way, the locomotive gets the same efficiency moving slowly as it does at speed (as opposed to cars, which would really rather be in 5th gear going 80 km/h).
Re:Don't you just love /. engineers (Score:3, Insightful)
I beg to differ. Do you own a recent vintage BMW? I'm talking about electrical gremilins that will make you pull your hair out. Don't even get me started on VW - disintegrating interior trim, broken window regulators, failing inginition packs. . . etc. etc. Even Mercedes is having a hard time with reliability issues these days.
Germans do make cars that are a hoot to drive, but they sure as hell aren't as reliable as you think.
Re:What was wrong with Ram Air? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Real world value ... (Score:3, Insightful)
i'm sorry, but this is either troll or
if everybody in the world would be scrapping car after two years, we would be in seriously deep shit.
here, in "eastern europe" - ex-ussr, most cars are > 10 years old, some are > 20. they run relatively ok (though some lack stuff like air conditioning etc), are very cheap to maintain (they are simple and fixing them is easy). gasoline consumption is only slighlty bigger than new cars (if these oldies have been taken care of) and many of them run on gas.
imagine the problems if all these cars would have to be recycled after only two years and only new ones were available...
this mentality of "production for production's sake" will backfire heavily. not that many care today, though.
oh, by the way, cars that last longer than ex-ussr made cars come from germany & japan, so that must be american way of life - rushing through stuff in incredible speed and producing incredible amounts of waste. well, that is ok because they will not be around when somebody will have to take care of it...
Re:Repairs... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It hardly reclaims 80% of the energy (Score:3, Insightful)
The advantage of the fully decoupled engine is that it is at the same efficiency all the time, and around town that's a win.
Justin.
Re:It hardly reclaims 80% of the energy (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider a redesign of the combustion engine that has just cylinders that use 2 a modified 2 stroke compression cycle on each end, and just move the cylinder in a tube that has an electric coil. Put a magnet in the middle and you can transmit power without needing to connect the cylinder to any mechanical transfer system. It'll produce a pretty standard AC sine-wave, and because there's no direct mechanical coupling it can run at optimal efficiency or power rates instead of having to deal with constant acceleration/deceleration. You could even shut down and power up individual cylinders on demand, and since there's no mechanical connections, using say, dozens or hundreds of smaller cylinders for better efficiency and more flexible power would be possible.
On the electric side, motors have far better low end torque, and less moving parts overall. If you did the design right you might even be able to eliminate the mechanical transmission for different gears completely. Not having mechanical transfer means you can easily do things like 1 motor per wheel directly coupled. This would again provide more robust redundancy, better efficiency, scalability (only run 2 motors when needed i.e. highway driving), better driving properties (full time all-wheel drive), etc.
Granted you're still going gas->motion->electricity->motion, but you're not replacing just gas->motion. You're replacing gas->several thousand moving parts with friction losses and failure rates->motion with gas->electricity->maybe a couple dozen parts->motion. The removal of the complex mechanical transfer system is where you'll get the efficiency AND reliability boost. But that would make cars last for 20 years, and nobody wants that, right?
Re:It hardly reclaims 80% of the energy (Score:2, Insightful)
No, the serial hybrid posited by the parent poster (and that you're arguing against) has an engine running at constant speed. The current set of parallel hybrids are dual drive systems (in the case of the Prius) or inline boost (such as the Civic & Accord) systems. In all current (parallel) hybrids, the engine drives the car in exactly the same way as any other car on the road. The difference is that some of the energy for braking is supplied by the load of an electrical generator/battery combo, which is then later reused for acceleration. Additional optimizations come from using this captured braking energy to supply vehicle acceleration at low speeds or to provide accessory when stopped in traffic (for some models of hybrids). The only time the engine would potentially run at constant speed is while the vehicle is stopped and the energy demands (e.g., air conditioning) are great enough that the battery energy needs to be maintained.
And, yes, I realize this is a great simplification of things, but it seems that the general public is utterly ignorant of hybrid technology even though it's nothing new. Just new to the production automotive companies.
It's a shame GM hasn't resurrected the EV1 with a hybrid engine option. Oh yeah, that's right, it's an enormous conspiracy driven by Big Oil and those lazy, fat-cats in Detroit.
Re:Real world value ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry to jump in anonymously here but that is an interesting point, and one that is relevant to most developed countries, including here in England.
My theory is:
The whole point of 'modern' living, is to reach a state where we have so many machines and resources available to each of us, that we never feel personally limited or restricted - in other words 'poor'. Unfortunately, the standard of living that we feel we need to achieve this state is constantly going up, as the Joneses keep on buying more stuff.
So in cars for example, We've gone from the Model T ford, with it's short range, slow speed and limited carrying capacity, to todays SUVs and 4x4s, which offer massive comfort, load capacity and high cruising speed. Over that 80-90 years though, the fuel consumption has gone from around 15mpg to around..err...20mpg. The internal combustion engine has been refined and made more efficient, and vastly more poweful, but with little improvemnt in mpg overall.
What's really changed then? The weight of the car. As a percentage of the cars fully laden weight, the average person has gone from being around 14% of the total, to say around 3% in the case of the new Land Rovers. Put 4 people in the Model T, and they make 38% of the total. Do the same in new Land Rover, and those 4 people make up 12% of the total weight - less than the impact of 1 person getting in their Model T
This means that the 'modern' car gives a better feeling of luxury, of power, of not being restricted. When you get in it, your personal mass makes very little difference to the performance of the vehicle, giving a greater feeling of 'limitless power'. And when all your friends get in then hey, it hardly makes a difference. Again, all about making sure you never feel 'restricted'.
So to get back to your original point, I think that efficiency is avoided where possible because it reinforces the limits, it reminds you of just how much of an excess you need to keep up the pretence of 'modern' living. It basically makes you think you could be poor. Because after all, what is the difference between living efficiently, and being poor?? I suppose one you choose, the other you don't.
Re:My Beamer is a Steamer (Score:3, Insightful)
Honda Pilot 18/24 (city/highway) (2wd)
Toyota Highlander 18/24 (city/highway) (4wd)
Ford Explorer 15/10 (city/highway) (4wd)
Now granted the real mileage of a lead foot driver will be lower, and these aren't necessarily the absolute maxed out versions of these vehicles (biggest engine, heaviest load), but I'd say that you're the one who's full of shit.
Certainly the biggest SUV, with biggest engine, pulling its maximum rated towing load may very well drop down as low as 5 mpg, but that's hardly a fair comparison. Lots of people are driving SUVs with much better gas mileage than that.
Re:Real world value ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I know exactly what you are talking about. I have spent a lot of time arguing energy technology and efficiency on peak oil message boards and it kind of goes like this:
Unabomber: Oh goody, peak oil is going to happen we're all going back to live on subsistance farms and industrial society and all those idiots with SUVs will be punished!
Me: Hey, but what about technology X?
Unabomber: Look at the EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested). To get all the steel out of the ground to build that would cause huge amounts of global warming.
Me: Ok, but it's something right? It will make life better right and the investment will eventually pay off?
Unabomber: Ha Ha! Nothing can stop the doom of technological society. Your puny inventions are no use!
Me: But I kinda like technological society.
Unabomber: Nature must punish you for your hubris to rise above the other animals. Repent and move back to an organic farm while there is still time!!!
Me: Well I'm going to ignore you and build technology X anyway.
Unabomber: But you'll cause global warming and keep perpetuating your unsustainable way of life.
Me: Better than going back to the stone age.