Diesel-Like Engine Could Boost Fuel Economy By 50% 721
bonch writes "Autoparts manufacturer Delphi has developed a diesel-like ignition engine running on gasoline, providing a potential 50 percent efficiency improvement over existing gas-powered engines. Engineers have long sought to run diesel-like engines on gasoline for its higher efficiency and low emissions. Delphi's engine, using a technique called gasoline-direct-injection compression ignition, could rival the performance of hybrid automobiles at a cheaper cost."
Jevons Paradox (Score:4, Insightful)
People will just drive more to make up for the greater efficiency, and still whine about gas prices...
Re:Redundant (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean everything is moving over the next two decades to electric anyway.
Electric has a moving target to hit, just as it has for the last 100+ years. Batteries are not the only technology that can improve in the next two decades.
From a buffoon (Score:4, Insightful)
What keeps diesel engines from becoming a standard in the US? I know regulations nearly disappeared them from the market, but that was for environmental reasons, which are the very reasons why diesel cars are attractive. While in Europe it is not outside the norm, here it seems like you are committing a crime if you run a diesel engine.
Also - since diesel engines are so efficient and all - what stops them from making a hybrid car that benefits from the even greater efficiency of diesel? or this new type of diesel like gas engine for that matter?
Re:Redundant (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems a bit redundant really, I mean everything is moving over the next two decades to electric anyway.
Perhaps. It will depend on if we can figure out how to store electricity in the car less expensively then we can store the equivalent energy in a liquid fuel tank.
Re:Redundant (Score:5, Insightful)
It's probably inevitable-- it's just a question of when. Battery cost per kWh has been decreasing at around 10% per year, and gasoline is getting consistently more expensive. It seems incredibly unlikely that both of these would stop moving toward the crossover point.
We need new power plants ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems a bit redundant really, I mean everything is moving over the next two decades to electric anyway.
Until we see new power plants being built I am not so sure we will have a large scale transition to electrically powered vehicles. Various parts of our electrical grid are already pretty stressed out and seeing periodic brown outs and black outs. This could put a damper on large scale adoption of electric vehicles.
Rival hybrids? I don't think so... (Score:4, Insightful)
At least they won't rival the hybrid version of this engine.
Would prefer this over a hybrid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:From a buffoon (Score:5, Insightful)
High fuel taxes on diesel, because 18-wheelers are business assets and gov't loves to tax business, since it's hidden from the consumer.
Re:Better than conservation (Score:5, Insightful)
You keep using that word "justice." I do not think it means what you think it means.
If by "economic social justice" you mean "ways I believe that I should spend your money" and if by "unjust" you mean "bad because it is not how I would allocate your resources," then maybe.
But "justice" is the application of law to achieve a fair, reasonable, and consistent outcome. If your neighbor gets fined $100 for leaving trash on the street and you do the same thing but don't get fined, that's unjust.
Enabling or subsidizing somebody else to have access to something that they do not currently have may be altruistic or philanthropic and it may even be a good idea, but it's got nothing to do with justice. "Social Justice" might have meant something once, but it's been hijacked in pursuit of so many agendas (because everybody likes Justice, right?!?) that it's about as meaningful as the names of laws, where you regularly see things like "The American Equal Opportunity And High Paying Jobs For Everyone Act" that does nothing like what the title says.
Re:Jevons Paradox (Score:5, Insightful)
Err, no. Driving has some significant extra costs that aren't captured by how much I spend on gas in a week: the time I sit in the car, being utterly unproductive. For some - specifically for those who drive for fun or work - this might lead to a zero reduction in gas costs. But it will reduce it for a whole lot of other people.
Too little, too late (Score:4, Insightful)
Gasoline. Because we still have glaciers.
Re:Well let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well with normal diesel cars, we don't hear about problems like that. For most of these issues, is is more about the gearing then how the fuel spins the cylinders.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Redundant (Score:5, Insightful)
long distances like the beach
If you're a long distance from a beach, you're doing it wrong.
Re:From a buffoon (Score:5, Insightful)
High fuel taxes on diesel, because 18-wheelers are business assets and gov't loves to tax business, since it's hidden from the consumer.
Since big rigs account for about 99% of road damage, the truck companies are still coming out ahead of car drivers on fuel tax paid vs. government entitlements received.
Re:Redundant (Score:4, Insightful)
However, putting this in a Hybrid would provide the better of both worlds in the near term.
Re:Redundant (Score:4, Insightful)
When you get kids and a wife, you'll probably (not certainly, but probably) wind up owning two cars. I have a Camry and a minivan - I would gladly trade the Camry in on an electric car if my payback period were not infinite. I'd still have the minivan for longer trips.
Indeed you can't beat the price of a car for trips when you have multiple passengers. Well, maybe the bus.... Last time I looked it was still only about $12 to take the bus from Philly to NYC, which is hard to beat.
As an aside, we have a fundamental problem with our nation's infrastructure when it costs less to drive my own car into a major city than it costs to take transit of some form. Even given the atrocious parking fees, tolls, wear-and-tear, and gas, it will be cheaper for me to make the 6-hour trip up to Boston with my family of four by car than by Amtrak. Amazing.
Re:Redundant (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not naive at all, it's simple physics, which apparently you know absolutely nothing about.
Most of the energy in gasoline is used to create heat, which is simply wasted. There's no way gasoline engines can even come close to electric cars in efficiency, once the battery problem is solved. Of course, a lot of electricity is still created with thermal cycle technology like cars (coal, oil, natural gas-fired plants), but a lot isn't (nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar). However, the efficiency of any power plant is far, far more than any small gasoline engine can ever hope to be, due to economies of scale and the lack of need to operate at highly variable speeds.
Re:Well let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
The people I end up behind on the surface streets might be able to do 0-60 in less than 10 seconds, but for some reason they won't even do 0-45 in less than 20, if they get there at all. Even when I'm getting on the interstate... less than half the people seem to use the onramp to accelerate up to the speed of traffic, they go slow the whole way and only speed up where the lanes actually merge.
I guess what I'm saying is I'd prefer 0-60 in 20 seconds if
people actually did that
compared to what they are doing with their much higher performance cars now.
Re:Well let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
I sometimes drive a Ford Anglia [wikipedia.org]. Has a 1L engine, about 39 HP. Does 0-60 in 30 seconds, which is slower than everything except loaded trucks and Model Ts.
You come to appreciate just what jackrabbits most cars are, and that acceleration is not that important. They jump out to a big lead, and then I catch up because they can't make traffic go faster and can't make lights turn green in time to avoid coming to a stop. I get to my destination as fast or almost as fast as with a modern car. There are a few situations where the lack of power can be a problem: a too short entrance ramp to a freeway built 50 years ago and in bad need of a redesign, the highway with 60 mph speed limits and a stoplight every mile (you reach 60 mph just as you approach the next light), trying to turn onto a busy highway at an intersection without a light, and mountain driving. You can't be in a hurry in that car. Forces the driver to take it easier.