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Transportation Technology

Mazda Says Its Next-Gen Gasoline Engine Will Run Cleaner Than An Electric Car (popularmechanics.com) 500

schwit1 shares a report from Popular Mechanics: Mazda is staking much of its future on the continued existence of the internal-combustion engine, with clever tech like spark-controlled compression ignition set to debut in Mazda's next-generation production-car engine, Skyactiv-X. But the automaker is already thinking even further into the internal-combustion future. Automotive News reports that Mazda is working on a new gas engine, Skyactiv-3, which the automaker says will be as clean as an electric vehicle. Speaking at a tech forum in Tokyo, Mazda powertrain chief Mitsuo Hitomi said that the main goal with Skyactiv-3 is to increase the engine's thermal efficiency to roughly 56 percent. If achieved, that would make the Skyactiv engine the first internal-combustion piston engine to turn the majority of its fuel's energy into power, rather than waste due to friction or heat loss.

To date, the most thermally efficient automotive internal combustion engine belongs to Mercedes-AMG's Formula 1 team, with an efficiency of 50 percent; AMG hopes the F1-derived engine in the Project One street-legal supercar will achieve 41-percent thermal efficiency, which would make it the most thermally efficient production-car engine in history. Automotive News says Mazda's 56-percent goal would represent a 27-percent improvement over current Mazda engines. Hitomi didn't provide a timeline for when Skyactiv-3 would reach production, nor did he specify how Mazda hopes to achieve such an improvement. Mazda's claim, that Skyactiv-3 would be cleaner to run than an all-electric vehicle, is a bold one, and requires some unpacking. Mazda bases the assertion on its estimates of "well-to-wheel" emissions, tallying the pollution generated by both fossil fuel production and utility electricity generation to compare Skyactiv-3 and EV emissions. Such analysis reflects the reality that, currently, much electricity is generated through fossil fuels. In regions where electricity comes from wind, solar, or hydroelectric, the EV would clearly win the argument, but that's not the case for many customers today. If Mazda can make a mass-production internal-combustion engine that achieves more than 50 percent thermal efficiency, it will be an incredible feat -- and would likely help guarantee the piston engine's continued survival.

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Mazda Says Its Next-Gen Gasoline Engine Will Run Cleaner Than An Electric Car

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  • not for long. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dehachel12 ( 4766411 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:03AM (#56038785)
    > and would likely help guarantee the piston engine's continued survival.

    but not for long. even IF they achieve this.

    • Re:not for long. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dwywit ( 1109409 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:27AM (#56038843)

      Well, short of making them illegal, there'll always be a market for piston-engined/internal combustion-engined vehicles. They're so much fun to drive.

      Daily driver for commuting/work/shopping? EVs for sure, but let's try to charge them off wind/solar please? Otherwise you're shifting the efficiency problem from your engine bay to the grid. I hate smug EV drivers boasting about "clean" driving. They get all flustered when I point out that grid-charging has all sorts of issues from coal-fired electricity.

      Also, going out for a spin on the weekend? I prefer my motorbike, thanks. Perhaps I'll have to have it modified to run on bio-fuels.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:39AM (#56038877)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by tinkerton ( 199273 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:48AM (#56038895)

          Spoken like someone who has not sat behind the wheel of a decent sportscar...
          But you do have a point.It's very easy to underestimate how Tesla's drive. They weigh a lot but a Panamera has the same weight and it can handle pretty well.

          • by haruchai ( 17472 )

            Spoken like someone who has not sat behind the wheel of a decent sportscar...
            But you do have a point.It's very easy to underestimate how Tesla's drive. They weigh a lot but a Panamera has the same weight and it can handle pretty well.

            Tastes differ. But many Model S owners previously owned performance sedans.
            I'm quite surprised at how glowing the reviews about the Model 3's handling is. I think it's going to steal sales away both from the competition and its larger sibling, if Tesla ever manages to get production scaled up.

            • Re:not for long. (Score:4, Insightful)

              by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @10:26AM (#56040109) Homepage Journal

              Tastes differ. But many Model S owners previously owned performance sedans.

              There's the disconnect.

              A performance sedan is NOT a sports car.

              ;)

              • And true sports cars are a tiny minority of the cars sold, so it kind of is a useless point to get all pissy about.

                Perhaps we should be doing a pissing contest between a Tesla Roadster and an arbitrary sports car of your choosing?

                I can say that our crappy little Leaf is a lot more fun around town than our crappy Ford Focus. I think that is not an unreasonable comparison, as they are both 4 door econo-box type cars. Even wimpy electric cars give you inst-torque which makes them feel more zippy and fun in t

        • by dwywit ( 1109409 )

          I'm sure it's fun to drive, I don't doubt that at all (and I haven't driven one), but I was referring more to the exercise of judgement and skill for manual gear-changing, anticipating what gear to be in for a corner, executing the turn in the right gear for a clean and speedy exit, etc. Not to mention the adolescent joy of drifting the back wheel/s through a turn. My kids enjoy it when I do a handbrake turn into the driveway. Not generally possible in a modern EV or IC car unless you're able to turn off th

        • Re:not for long. (Score:5, Interesting)

          by dwywit ( 1109409 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @06:27AM (#56039005)

          Also, just because an EV is fun to drive, doesn't mean that IC cars *aren't* fun to drive.

          Hop in a Ford Focus Sport or a Golf GTi and tell me it isn't fun.

          Even better, jump in an Audi Quattro and tell me what you think.

          Or find yourself a Group B rally car and take it for a spin on a dirt track.

          EVs aren't an evolution of fun, they're not the next generation of fun, they're more of a new branch of the family tree. They're going to replace whole classes of IC cars, e.g commuting, but they're not going to replace them all.

          • Fun cars (Score:5, Interesting)

            by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @07:13AM (#56039129)

            Also, just because an EV is fun to drive, doesn't mean that IC cars *aren't* fun to drive.

            No argument from me.

            Hop in a Ford Focus Sport or a Golf GTi and tell me it isn't fun.

            We'll I've owned a GTi and it wasn't exactly mind blowing. I didn't hate it but it was just a hopped up econobox with the various compromises that entails. Hot hatchbacks try to be all things to all people and to my mind they fail in that for the most part. The Mercedes SLK I had was MUCH more fun (albeit less practical) to drive. It was faster, cornered way better, looked better, and did the one thing it was designed to do rather well. If you can only afford one car and need something small and practical with a bit of a kick then a hot hatch isn't a bad choice but as fun cars go they aren't the best option out there.

            Even better, jump in an Audi Quattro and tell me what you think.

            I've owned one of those too a while back. Performed well enough but fun to drive? It was ok in some conditions. Better than a hot hatch but worse than a proper sports car in the dry. Fairly fun on gravel and in sloppy weather.

            Or find yourself a Group B rally car and take it for a spin on a dirt track.

            Seriously? You're comparing a purpose built race car to a street legal EV? I'm sure it's amazing to drive an F1 car too but let's keep it realistic.

            EVs aren't an evolution of fun, they're not the next generation of fun, they're more of a new branch of the family tree. They're going to replace whole classes of IC cars, e.g commuting, but they're not going to replace them all.

            Yes there will probably be IC cars for the foreseeable future as long as those who use fossil fuels aren't required to pay for the full cost of the pollution they generate. My guess is that EVs will eventually account for the majority of cars with gas/diesel cars becoming specialty vehicles for tasks EVs aren't well suited for. (remote locations, extreme climates, etc) The advantages of EVs just make too much sense for most people if they can get the fueling infrastructure issues sorted out. How long this will take is anybody's guess but I'm thinking at least 30 years.

            • >EVs aren't well suited for. (remote locations, extreme climates, etc)

              exactly how extreme are we talking about ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

              • by Rei ( 128717 )

                It's also worth noting that the country in the world with the highest EV adoption rate - over half of all new cars being EVs - is Norway. And in second place? Iceland. The whole "EVs can't handle extreme climates or places with low population density" thing is just plain silly. We here where the weather is cold like how easy EVs are to preheat, and they tend to handle very well in snowy/icy weather. And while power is reduced (and regen sometimes disabled) at low temperatures until the pack warms up, th

                • The whole "EVs can't handle extreme climates or places with low population density" thing is just plain silly.

                  It's not a population density thing. The question is whether there is refueling infrastructure available. Go to remote parts of Alaska or Antarctica and an EV would rapidly become useless because there is simply no way to practically charge it. It doesn't have to be a big town but you do need access to some means of charging it. There also are climates where EVs will struggle. Heat is actually a bigger problem than cold for them. In the cold they don't work as well but extreme heat can kill an EV. I t

                  • You can get electricity anywhere. If you can get petroleum to a location for an IC car, you can get electricity from that same petroleum. Sure, you lose any of the extra efficiency and reduced pollution benefits in that case, but surely we can all agree that this is an edge case. Not to mention, if you have an IC car in a remote place, you are dependent on deliveries of gasoline/diesel fuel. With an electric car, you have any number of possibilities to generate electricity (methane, propane, solar, wind, et
                  • The whole "EVs can't handle extreme climates or places with low population density" thing is just plain silly.

                    It's not a population density thing. The question is whether there is refueling infrastructure available. Go to remote parts of Alaska or Antarctica and an EV would rapidly become useless because there is simply no way to practically charge it.

                    The problem with this argument of course, is that if there is no petrofuel, the IC engines don't work either.

                    Taking these fringe cases of a cabin in the remote woods like the Alaskan reality shows is where we start going off the rails. I suppose a person who wants to live like "Life Below Zero" might be tied to petrofuels. But when the main mode of transportation is via snowmobile, it starts getting difficult to compare it to a more normal situation.

                    Meanwhile, in other places in the far north with hig

                    • by Rei ( 128717 )

                      Here's the interesting thing. Let's just say that Norway inexplicably stops their rapid rise on the S-curve and stalls out at a ~50% EV purchase rate. There will end up. As the number of EVs on the road increases toward that 50%, the already dense charging network would be expected to increase 10-20x to keep up with the growing numbers. But meanwhile the number of gasoline vehicles is declining. The number of gas stations would reduce to half.

                      Now imagine the situation for gas at 80% market penetration.

                • Re:Fun cars (Score:5, Insightful)

                  by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @09:23AM (#56039675)

                  The whole "EVs can't handle extreme climates or places with low population density" thing is just plain silly.

                  I've always suspected that the people bringing up that argument live in places like Sothern California or Florida.

                  Because they don't seem to have ever experienced the fun of keeping IC engines running in the extremes - usually cold

                  Block heaters, battery heaters,oil pan heaters, parking meters with electrical outlets for the heaters, and heaven help you if you let that diesel engine come to winter temp.

                  I haven't seen it in person, but people do start fires under diesel engines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

                  Next time someone whines about a cold Tesla, versus reliable IC vehicles, let them see that video

            • Ok the group B thing was hyperbole but i was talking about "fun to drive", not performance or anything else.

              I guess a group B car would take a lot of work to learn, before it became fun.

      • Efficiency (Score:5, Interesting)

        by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:49AM (#56038905) Homepage

        but let's try to charge them off wind/solar please?

        Which is already happening in several countries (e.g.: hydro is popular in the Alpine regions of Europe).
        You know, not every nations produces it's electricity by burning coal.

        Otherwise you're shifting the efficiency problem from your engine bay to the grid. I hate smug EV drivers boasting about "clean" driving. They get all flustered when I point out that grid-charging has all sorts of issues from coal-fired electricity.

        According to research (damn, I have to keep the link under hand), except in a few countries that have a horrible mix of sources of electricity and burn too much fossils (out of my head, I think it's : China, Inda, Australia. Not 100% sure, should google) where there's basically no difference between an EV charging from the grid and a ICE, in every other country including those that still burn fossil in electrical power plant (that's including the US), there's some improvement of efficiency simply by shifting the burning from a small compact ICE that has to do compromises on lots of other parameters (weight, size, quick reaction, etc.) to a huge power plant that is more or less exclusively optimized for efficiency.

        And then you have European nations where you can find a mix of power source that relies a lot on renewable sources (solar, wind, alpine hydro) or sources with a much smaller mass of pollution output (nuclear).

        Also the way power is produced isn't the only advantage :

        EV use regenerative breaking, being able to use significant fraction of the kinetic energy to charge back their battery pack.
        (Slight tangeant, Swiss example : two high speed train going down from the Lötschberg tunnel can power one train going up "for free").

        That is extremely usefull in stop-and-go situations (in city driving, commuting on busy highway with traffic jams, etc.) whereas these situations are killer for ICE efficiency.

        Also, going out for a spin on the weekend? I prefer my motorbike, thanks. Perhaps I'll have to have it modified to run on bio-fuels.

        Depends on how the biofuels are produced.
          - As a way to make something useful out of argigulture's waste ? (We're doing so in several European countries) Yup, that's definitely an improvement.

        - But some countries (US among other, I've read) do cultivate plants for the sole purpose of producing ethanol. That's cultures which are requiring additional soil exploitation, and a competing with food production.
        It's a bit more problematic in the long term regarding bio-diversity, etc.

        • by dwywit ( 1109409 )

          Yes, Australia - land of wide, sun-drenched PV-friendly plains - has a horrible dependence on coal-fired power. But I'm encouraged by the Tesla battery recently installed in South Australia. Baby steps are better then no steps.

          Also - my bike wouldn't run on ethanol. Well, maybe 5 or 10% blend, but that stuff has proved unpopular here. My local garage stopped selling it some time ago. The Guzzi needs 98 octane, so it's premium 98 for me!

        • Re:Efficiency (Score:5, Informative)

          by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @07:12AM (#56039127)

          but let's try to charge them off wind/solar please?

          Which is already happening in several countries (e.g.: hydro is popular in the Alpine regions of Europe).
          You know, not every nations produces it's electricity by burning coal.

          Otherwise you're shifting the efficiency problem from your engine bay to the grid. I hate smug EV drivers boasting about "clean" driving. They get all flustered when I point out that grid-charging has all sorts of issues from coal-fired electricity.

          According to research (damn, I have to keep the link under hand), except in a few countries that have a horrible mix of sources of electricity and burn too much fossils

          UCS has been evaluating & tracking how much mpg is needed to match an EV on a grid-level basis
          http://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-re... [ucsusa.org]

          Unless Mazda has their super-duper engine ready tomorrow, they're fighting an uphill battle with an elephant on their backs.
          In 2009, even on the worst grids, an EV would been about the same as a 35 mpg car.
          Fast forward to 2014 (there's a slider on one of the images on the page for comparison) and you're looking at only 2 grids where a 40 mpg car is better than an EV and if you look at the most populous areas, you need a 75 mpg car to achieve parity.

      • Re:not for long. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by skullandbones99 ( 3478115 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @07:34AM (#56039197)

        Norway is 99% hydro-power and has the highest number of EVs per capita in the world. Over 50% of new car sales in Norway come with a plug. Norway is already in the future. Norway has high levels of tax on fossil cars and no tax on electric cars so the population is encouraged to buy EVs. By 2025 (7 years from now), Norway will ban the sale of new fossil cars.

        France has 75% Nuclear power with the remaining being hydro-power plus wind. France is a big electricity exporter to the rest of Europe which greens up the grid across Europe via grid interconnection cables. For example, this offsets against Germany's move to coal due to closing down their Nuclear power stations.

        Even in the UK, coal-fired electricity generation is fast declining (fully phased out by 2025), there is now more wind power generation than coal in the UK. On the other hand, the UK has up to 50% gas-fired power generation balanced against renewable power sources. On some days, there is more renewable power generated than from gas-fired power generation.

        So you are wrong about high levels of coal-fired electricity when you consider electricity generation in Western Europe. If you consider Poland in Eastern Europe then you would be correct.

        • Yes, i was referring to Australia.

        • Lol you aren't from Norway. In Norway nearly 100% of new cars have a plug. It's just on intetnal combustion engines it's used to heat the block so the damn thing actually starts in winter.

          Also it is 100% correct EV are only as green as where you get your electricity. Here in the Midwest electric cars get roughly 35-45 Mpg equivelant CO2. Upstate New York or countries like Norway are over 120 Mpg due to the cleaner nature of the power, though hydro does have its own significant environmental impact.
      • What make them more fun than EV? The loud noise? Loud MCs in cities are the worst.

        • Well, as far as motorbikes are concerned, there's feedback from the engine. It's difficult to explain without the reference of actual riding experience.

      • > Well, short of making them illegal, there'll always be a market for piston-engined/internal combustion-engined vehicles. They're so much fun to drive.

        Combustion engines tend to also have a notably better power/mass ratio for the whole vehicle, due to the mass of the batteries and the mass of the motor for electric vehicles. Diesel can approach the power and performance of piston fired engines. Rotary engines can do as well _in theory_, but have never worked out commercially.

        • by Rei ( 128717 )

          Historically, sure (battery mass, not so much motor mass). But that's been disappearing. Model 3 SR, for example, matches the BMW 330i for performance and is basically the same weight. Model 3 LR matches the 340i and is only slightly heavier. Once they launch the performance package, I'd wager that it will beat most of its performance-matched class competitors on weight, since electric drive units are lighter than engines per unit power.

      • Well, short of making them illegal, there'll always be a market for piston-engined/internal combustion-engined vehicles. They're so much fun to drive.

        Think about "always" and "fun to drive" more carefully.

        Yes, based on the current state of battery technology, and on what is projected to exist in the near future, we can say that for decades to come, there will exist at least a niche for internal combustion engine-powered vehicles. However projecting beyond the next, say, 20 years, we've no idea how far battery or some other EV storage technology might go. It might be that in 60 or 80 years, ICE-powered vehicles will exist just as old-timers, things you se

      • by b0bby ( 201198 )

        EVs for sure, but let's try to charge them off wind/solar please? Otherwise you're shifting the efficiency problem from your engine bay to the grid. I hate smug EV drivers boasting about "clean" driving. They get all flustered when I point out that grid-charging has all sorts of issues from coal-fired electricity.

        Even if you're in the midwest, with the dirtiest electric mix around, an EV is generally going to be cleaner than most vehicles. And keep in mind that the mix should only get cleaner with time. On the coasts an EV is going to be cleaner than any internal combustion engine vehicle. The Union of Concerned Scientists have some good information on this:
        https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-v... [ucsusa.org]
        https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-v... [ucsusa.org]

        I like my motorcycle too, but I'm looking forward to a quiet electric motorcycle with lots of i

      • by kaybee ( 101750 )

        Similar to the other reply, I have a P85D and I'll tell you that electric motors are not inherently less fun than gas motors. And I owned a Porsche 911 Turbo S for a while. The Porsche definitely had better handling, but even with the turbo it doesn't compare to the acceleration of my Tesla. I mean the handling is great for a 5,000-lb full-size sedan, but nothing like a 911.

        In the future I'm sure we'll have electric cars with Porsche handling. In fact Porsche is already working on those.

        Once that happens, t

    • by Rei ( 128717 )

      It's not as great as it sounds regardless, even if they can achieve that, and in a way that can meet emissions regulations**, and in a way that's not absurdly heavy and expensive**. That would be 56% peak efficiency. The only way you can get a car's engine to operate on average even close to its peak is to go full hybrid. But then you have both a battery/motor system and a ICE/fuel/pollution controls system in the same car. And even still you wouldn't average the peak; you just wouldn't be as vastly lower

    • Totally Wrong (Score:5, Informative)

      by stooo ( 2202012 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @06:20AM (#56038981) Homepage

      >> Mazda powertrain chief Mitsuo Hitomi said that the main goal with Skyactiv-3 is to increase the engine's thermal efficiency to roughly 56 percent.
      Yeah. Not really.
      A typical gasoline engine may have an efficiency of 20-30% at best.
      The maximum efficency of an otto cycle gasoline engine is 40-47%, which is limited by physics.
      More would mean a different cycle needs to be used. You can't beat entropy.
      https://physics.stackexchange.... [stackexchange.com]

      Moreover all these efficiencies are totally misleading and completely wrong for an automobile.
      The real efficiency of a gasoline engine may be 30%. But the real average efficiency of a gas engine in a car is no more than 12% !!!!
      Why ? because this top efficiency is only achieved at a single point in the motor torque/rpm graph.
      At all other regimes, the efficiency drops like a rock into the Marianna trench.
      The real world gas powered engine efficiency is 12% at best. Diesel achieves 15-17% at best.

      • Re:Totally Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)

        by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @08:35AM (#56039449)
        I'm seriously sick and tired of the bullshit definition of thermal efficiency cycles. You need to have your cold side sink at absolute zero, this limits any practical process to a low efficiency, and is technically correct but horribly misleading. Moreover it's bullshit because after your exaust dips below ambient temperature you are actually throwing away useful energy, no one pays for the base thermal energy in the atmosphere so the dollar cost is zero and most textbooks argue this energy is unavailable (ironically). More emphasis needs to be put on the upper bound of possible efficiency using the actual thermal resivoirs at hand and rating efficiency as a percentage of the theoretical maximum given those constraints. It's like when they teach you in 1st year mechanical engineering where the isothermal expansion of a cylinder is efficient. Great! But seriously emphasize the fact it's efficient because you are taking thermal energy you didn't pay for from the atmosphere (most new students leave it off the energy balance lol). Car engine is 18% efficient? Great! But a better way to say it is 42% utilization of available thermal energy.
      • Actually it's right (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @10:32AM (#56040159)
        You can back out ICE efficiency from the EVs on the road. Let's use the Nissan Leaf [fueleconomy.gov] (you'll see why later). EPA rating of 30 kWh per 100 miles. 112 MPGe combined, 101 MPGe.highway. Top speed of 93 MPH [wikipedia.org].

        30 kWh per 100 miles = 108 Megajoules per 100 miles. Since we're trying to do a comparison and ICE cars don't have regenerative braking, we need to compare the highway mileage. Since the Leaf gets 101 MPGe on the highway vs 112 MPGe combined, this works out to (112/101)*(108 MJ) = 119.8 MJ per 100 miles on the highway. Note that this is energy stored in the battery. To do the comparison, we need energy at wheels to the ground.

        Electric motor + inverter efficiency is typically about 85%-93% [osti.gov] (page 35). That's for a Prius' motor (the only one I could find detailed stats for), but they're all pretty similar at these levels of power output. Since there's no gearing, if you align the Leaf's top speed of 93 MPH with 6000 RPM, then the highway speed of 55 MPH corresponds to (55/93)*(6000 RPM) = 3550 RPM. Which puts us right around 90% efficiency.

        I couldn't find any numbers for battery discharge efficiency. Battery charging efficiency for a Tesla with the home charger is about 85% [teslaliving.net]. Battery discharge efficiency is typically a bit worse (even more so at higher loads, which is why jackrabbit or ludicrous mode starts kill your rnage). so go with 80%. (For those of you complaining this is too unfavorable to EVs, a lower discharge efficiency here corresponds to lower ICE efficiency later on.)

        So 119.8 MJ from the battery becomes (119.8 MJ)*(90%)*(80%) = 86.3 MJ per 100 miles wheels-to-ground. The extra energy is lost as heat to the battery, wiring, inverter, and motor.

        Gasoline has an energy density [wikipedia.org] of 34.2 MJ/L = 129.5 MJ/gallon. To figure out how many gallons were used in 100 miles, we need the MPG of a gas-powered Leaf. Fortunately we have one - the Leaf's aerodynamic and rolling resistance is almost identical to the Versa [fueleconomy.gov] since it shares the same body and frame (I had to go back to 2014 to get the hatchback version with a regular transmission). Highway mileage is 35 MPG. Meaning (129.5 MJ/gal)*(100 miles)/(35 miles/gal) = 370 MJ worth of gasoline consumed per 100 miles.

        Overall highway efficiency of the ICE and drivetrain is then energy wheels-to-ground vs energy in the gasoline. (86.3 MJ)/(370 MJ) = 23.3%. It's rated at 26 MPG city, so overall efficiency in city driving is (26/35)*(23.3%) = 17.3%. A far cry from the 12% you came up with.

        We can also calculate overall efficiency for the EV, from energy source to wheels-to-ground, just like we calculated it for the ICE vehicle from energy source (gasoline) to wheels-to-ground. The average efficiency of a coal plant [eia.gov] is about 33%. The average efficiency of a natural gas plant is about 43%. Power line transmission losses are about 5%. As mentioned before, charging efficiency (for a home charger) is around 85%, discharge efficiency around 80%, motor efficiency around 90%. To get an overall efficiency of (33% or 43%)*(95%)*(85%)*(80%)*(90%) = 19.2% or 25%. If you use a fast charger like a Supercharger station, it's even worse, since the charging efficiency is even lower (more of the electricity is lost as heat) the more quickly you charge the battery.

        So an EV powered by electricity generated from fossil fuels isn't any more energy efficient than an ICE vehicle. The reason it's cheaper to charge an EV is almost entirely because gasoline is damn expensive for an energy source. Coal costs about $50/ton and contains ab
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      > and would likely help guarantee the piston engine's continued survival.

      but not for long. even IF they achieve this.

      Tell that to someone in Siberia or other remote, sparsely-populated area of the planet.

      The world isn't limited to your sheltered suburbia where "someone else" provides your every need and all you have to do is wave some piece of plastic to get it.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      This is more likely to hurt Mazda than help them.

      Japanese manufacturers mostly decided to focus on hybrid and more efficient ICE technology. Oh, and hydrogen. That turned out to be a huge mistake, because the world is going towards zero emission vehicles with large batteries. The writing is on the wall, only specialist niches will still use internal combustion engines in the relatively near future.

      It's not like they can just throw an electric drive-train in either. Apart from converted ICE models tending to

  • by shilly ( 142940 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:10AM (#56038801)

    They are defining the scope of "clean" pretty narrowly here to get this win. One admittedly important metric only -- CO2e, and the comparator is an EV running off a grid that looks like today.

    Obviously,
    1. there are many other important metrics: particulates, particulates at street level, NOx, NOx at street level, noise, vibration damage, etc.
    2. EVs get less carbon intensive over time without doing anything as the mix of power sources shifts more and more towards low-carbon.

    • by Rei ( 128717 )

      HCCI is usually pretty good with NOx. On the other hand, it tends to have high CO and VOC emissions. As for noise, it's not too bad in normal operation, although there's a lot of noise switching between HCCI and spark modes (this is in comparison to current spark ignition vehicles). Sound damping is important.

      Also note that you'll never see 56% efficiency in the real world, even if that's the engine's peak efficiency (assuming that they even achieve that). A typical car gasoline engine historically has r

  • by dwywit ( 1109409 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:13AM (#56038805)

    On whether the germans or the japanese get there first - at least to a production vehicle, the article states that Merc-AMG have already made it with F1, but the japanese are persistent.

    This will be an interesting contest to watch.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      On whether the germans or the japanese get there first - at least to a production vehicle, the article states that Merc-AMG have already made it with F1, but the japanese are persistent.

      This will be an interesting contest to watch.

      The Skyactive-X isn't a new design, it's basically a diesel-like petrol that ignites by compression rather than spark plugs. Mercedes were far from the first to develop one however none have been put into production because they're much more complex compared to traditional designs.

      Also F1 engines are far from production, they're rebuilt after almost every race (in the case of Renault last season, sometimes during the race) because they run at such tight tolerances. They have complex anti stall systems be

    • by Hodr ( 219920 )

      Germans will get there first, by programming the car to lie about how much fuel has been consumed when under test conditions.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:16AM (#56038811)

    Not like you think, of course.

    But burn it cleanly in a fuel cell, capture (and perhaps compress) its exhaust gases, and convert them back into gasoline in a plant, using nothing but electricity from sunlight, and you got a perfectly clean, infinitely recyclable process, and a fuel that has *much* higher energy density than batteries.

    You can even take the CO2 from the air and turn it back into gasoline. Although that is very inefficient.
    But efficiency is not really relevant, as you can store both the CO2 and gasoline for a very long time, and hence do the conversion whenever and wherever you please. Like only in the summer during the day. Or in the desert. (Although of course carrying it via ships and pipelines is a bad idea due to how much mess even a little error can cause..)

    It needs no rare earths, no poisonous chemicals (OK, except that gasoline itself isn't the healthiest. But hey, it literally comes out of the ground. :), and also doesn’t explode, unlike batteries (and movie gasoline).

    I know this goes very much against popular opinion (as in belief, as opposed to knowledge, or understanding), and might even get me downmodded on this site,
    but I find it crazy that we run after batteries, even though they are even worse, just because we are willfully (and militantly) ignorant regarding the above solution.

  • by 91degrees ( 207121 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:18AM (#56038817) Journal

    it will be an incredible feat -- and would likely help guarantee the piston engine's continued survival.

    Why is this desirable? A heavy noisy motor with lots of moving parts - decreasing reliability - requiring harmful chemicals and kicking out pollution at street level.

    Not criticising the concept. It's good to see improvements, and the internal combustion engine was an impressive invention, but I think after a century and a half, we should expect it to be replaced with better technology.

    • It's appealing to Mazda because they are an also-ran. Their sales are a minuscule percentage of the big automakers. They don't have the budget to advance EV technology, but they can still afford to work on ICEs. Mitsubishi will go away before Mazda, but the writing is on the wall for Mazda too.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:19AM (#56038823)

    The elephant in the room is: regardless of whether EV from green sources or super-efficient ICE, we have too many cars, and they are too big.

    I watched in horror at Dieselgate, where folks were quibbling about a minor cheat in small automobiles while they were buying SUVs to go buy their groceries or bring their prole to the school.

    I mean: VW (and many others!) cheated on the emission values of their cars and desserve a serious spanking on that (much more than they actually got!), but are making a killing selling SUVs to people that don't really need them: the real problem are we, the customers!

    • by orlanz ( 882574 )

      I want to clarify this up a bit for the rest of the world because this "big car" topic is something I hear all over. In the US, it simply does not make sense to buy cars smaller than a Toyota Corolla. As a primary vehicle, that market is as niche as buying a sports car. But such cars are considered for a secondary or the "kids" car.

      Anyway, a "mini" SUV here would be a Honda CR-V. It has 2x the space of a Fiat 300 and loses a mere 10% in fuel economy (+0.7 L per 100km). The continental US is BIG. But m

    • I realised a while back that in the UK, if you have 2 kids, you pretty much *need* a big car (assuming you need a car, which you do unless you live in London). By law, kids have to be in a high-back child seat until the age of 27*, which means that they need quite a bit of space in the back to fit them and the seats in. Having two of them means there's about half a seat between, which means you can't transport any other adults around, and can't put a child in there because that would be illegal. Thus, if yo

  • But (Score:5, Insightful)

    by M0j0_j0j0 ( 1250800 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:35AM (#56038863)

    On a long term forecast, electric vehicles will be very very cheap to produce, not just the components are way less, the supply chain and quality control will be way more reduced. There is no way any fossil fuel will ever be more efficient from an energy prepective than a eletric engine. We are at infant stage of tech, and cars are getting has low as 12 kwh per 100 km, I can't even imagine anything better than this. This Mazda engine relies on extreme compression, don't expect the engines to last long

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The battery re-use and recycling market is going to be huge too. The chassis of most EVs will wear out before the battery, and I expect a lot of manufacturers will offer to buy the battery back and then install it in a new vehicle with the capacity electronically limited. So you 80kWh new car might have a used 100kWh battery in it, with a lifetime manufacturer guarantee.

      That would also solve battery degradation worries that some people still have.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Mazda's claim sounds like a bold-faced lie. They need to print the numbers behind their 'well to wheel' efficiency calculation, as it isn't credible. Last I read, it takes at least 4 Kwh to refine a gallon of gasoline. This is just the electricity used in the refinery, no transport to the refinery or transport to the gas station. That's enough to go 33 km at the above stated efficiency.

      Another method of proof: have the CEO spend a day in a sealed garage with the engine running. Do not use monkeys. If

  • Compression Ratio! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tinkerton ( 199273 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @05:53AM (#56038915)

    Mazda's engine achieves a compression ratio of 14 to 1 which I think is spectacular for a road going car. It's the same as their diesel which has evolved in the other direction.

    Racecars can get higher compression but their idle is very high, which avoids low rev knocking and they use higher octane.

    Come on guys, is nobody interested in the mechanics of this thing?

    • by beckett ( 27524 )

      Mazda's engine achieves a compression ratio of 14 to 1

      so premium gasoline i'm guessing? $$$$$

      • Yes. I've been reading about the Skyactiv X engine and in the US it would only have a ratio of 13:1 .
        It's not the first attempt at such a high ratio, there have been other projects but this time it appears to succeed.

      • by dwywit ( 1109409 )

        Avgas perhaps. My Moto guzzi runs about 10.2:1 and it needs premium 98.

        Still, it goes to show what can be achieved with engineering and quality manufacture. This is a petrol-engined pushrod-cam 2-valve motor originally designed in the 1960s. It's air-cooled and carburetted, yet it can run a 10.2:1 compression ratio. No electronics - well, originally it was points-and-coil, these days it sports an electronic ignition for convenience.

    • Come on guys, is nobody interested in the mechanics of this thing?

      Engine does engine things at slightly different specs. Not really. Not to belittle the achievement but ultimately this is just moving design constraints around. I would be far more interested in a completely different or novel design, especially considering the physics based limitations of the otto cycle will prevent the kind of numbers they are hoping to achieve.

    • That's hardware, I'm a software guy.

  • Not a credible claim (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @06:34AM (#56039015) Journal
    The utility scale power plants have no size or weight limits. They use steam turbines, triple heat recovery boilers, and ideal source/sink temperature using cooling towers. Still they are not touching 56% efficiency. The number is close to Carnot efficiency, theoretical maximum.

    They are fudging some number to tout this efficiency.

  • by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @06:50AM (#56039069)
    There is a review of a test-drive of a prototype from autocar [autocar.co.uk]. It is a "Spark Controlled Compression Ignition" engine, which uses a compression ignition and spark in some circumstances and spark ignition in others. In another article [autocar.co.uk] they say:

    One is the continuous use of spark plugs. These ignite the mixture conventionally when the engine is cold or operating at high revs but, in lean burn mode (about 80% of the time), the spark ignites a pulse of richer fuel. The resultant fireball lights the ultra-lean mixture as it’s compressed.

    According to the test drive it's characteristics sound good (low end torque and high revving) but they were unable to verify fuel economy claims.

  • comparing the engine with an EV which is powered by fossils fuel electricity..... Marketing at work again.. No their new engine (which is only still in theoretical stage) is not cleaner than any EV. when it comes to the car itself, it's still much MUCH more polluting than an EV by itself. And we want to get rid of those localized polluters.. It's easier to clean/reduce pollution from one big giant plant, than a gazillion small ones (cars).. And since most countries are already setting in motion laws that pr
  • In rural areas where power distribution is more complex and transmission losses are higher, it doesn't always make sense to use electric vehicles. In an urban center where millions of people share the same air in close proximity, it helps to have a very clean burning gasoline engine, it helps more to run electric vehicles.

    50 years from now, I can imagine regularly seeing vehicles still burning hydrocarbons in a piston engine. Such as off-road vehicles, farm equipment, etc. But I seriously doubt we'll see a

  • by SJ ( 13711 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @08:03AM (#56039315)

    Put the CEO in a air-sealed room with one of his cleanest cars.

    Start the engine.

    If the gas tank runs out before he dies, I'll believe his claim and buy one of his cars.

  • There is only one way to achieve that efficiency with a combustion engine, or any thermal engine: Increase the operating temperature and the expansion ratio.
    So they will need:
    - a material that withstands the higher temperatures
    - a fuel that does not ignite on its own. Are you sure they are using gasoline and not diesel?
    - a way to manage the nitric oxides that form at these high temperatures - the same problem that efficient diesel engines run in
  • I don't care how gutless this thing is, I'll prefer it to a battery until the day batteries can stay charged for 24 full hours of driving.
  • by hipp5 ( 1635263 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @08:48AM (#56039501)

    It's all fine and good to make an efficient IC engine car, but that in no way staves off its demise. Because no one wants even the most efficient ICE car if the infrastructure isn't around to support it. There is a currently huge network of gas stations, oil change shops, and engine repair shops. As EVs hit critical mass, those businesses are going to start shutting down, further accelerating the shift to EVs. At some point, the few people who have held on to ICE cars will be traveling far out of their way to find a "boutique" gasoline and oil change supplier.

  • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @09:59AM (#56039913)
    Mazda is to be applauded for making a more efficient internal combustion engine. But the only way it's "cleaner" than an electric vehicle is by making the assumption that the EV was charged from fuel produced by fossil fuel. That's a bogus assumption.
  • Great, couple the (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mark Stewart ( 4494361 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @11:38AM (#56040709)
    new clean engine with some batteries and electric motors and you can make a great pluggable hybrid car.
  • by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Wednesday January 31, 2018 @11:41AM (#56040733) Journal
    Are they factoring in how much carbon footprint is produced by having to maintain an ICE vehicle compared to electric? I'm talking about everything that produces all the parts and supplies necessary to do required maintenance of an internal-combustion engine vehicle compared to all-electric, which requires a fraction of the maintenance.

    Face it, ICEs are going to go away sooner or later. If practical, I'd rather it was sooner. I've been repairing and maintaining ICE vehicles of all kinds since I was 15, and it's no picnic. An electric vehicle would be so much easier to deal with, so much cleaner.

Reality must take precedence over public relations, for Mother Nature cannot be fooled. -- R.P. Feynman

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