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Transportation

Is There Still Room to Improve ICE Technology? (thedrive.com) 247

Posted by EditorDavid from the improving-engines dept.
Here's how long-time Slashdot reader Baron_Yam summarizes a radically new tiny-but-powerful "opposed-piston engine" created by INNengine of Granada, Spain. "500cc, 120 horsepower, under 40 kilograms (85 pounds). No cylinder head in the motor, no camshaft, no crankshaft, no valves, and no oil mixed in with the fuel."

The company calls it "a single-stroke combustion cycle," though the engine itself still has a compression stroke and an exhaust stroke, reports The Drive: Despite having four cylinder banks, the INNengine (depending on its configuration) actually has eight pistons. This is because the engine is an opposed-piston motor, meaning that each piston's compression stroke is performed against a second piston placed in the same cylinder bank rather than a static cylinder head. It still only has four combustion chambers, though, which means it sounds similar to a four-cylinder engine... The mechanical configuration also allows for better engine balance. That means typical drawbacks of an internal combustion motor (often referred to as noise, vibration, and harshness) are minimalized. Once combustion happens, the piston is pushed back against the plate and forces the plate to rotate. This motion is synced between each half of the motor via a shared shaft — meaning, no extra timing components...

Is it likely that we'll see INNengine's combustion tech powering the wheels of a car? Probably not, at least not directly hooked up to a gearbox. The Mazda featured in INNengine's demo video was a great concept, but the company seems to be instead targeting the EV market as a range extender, especially since that's the way the industry is ultimately headed.

If the tech had debuted a few decades ago or more, perhaps there would have been a chance of adoption in the main market (cue Felix Wankel's notorious rotary). But messing with perfection in this day and age, especially as combustion tech could be on the way out, seems a bit unlikely to take off. That's why a range extender would appear to be the most logical path forward for this tech, especially if we want more lightweight, cost-effective EVs.
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Is There Still Room to Improve ICE Technology? More

Is There Still Room to Improve ICE Technology?

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  • not really (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymouse Cowtard ( 6211666 )
    Similarly, an improved mouse trap will be useless once small rodents become extinct. An improved fishing rod will be useless unless you want to eat fish full of plastic and industrial chemicals. Look at what we did with "a computer you can carry in your pocket". We're a fucking disaster.

    • Re:not really (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @07:07PM (#63691179) Homepage

      I don't know, I wouldn't count the ICE out yet. To most it's a forgone conclusion that the electric car will completely put the ICE out of business. With current battery technology there are some places, mostly very cold ones, where a ICE is the better option.

      But as I've said before, its not the ICE that is the problem but the fuel we have chosen to use in it. There is still plenty of research being done on finding a alternate fuel that is cheap, clean, and renewable. Who ever comes up with this type of fuel is going to be rich beyond his wildest dreams. A pretty good incentive for someone to keep working on the project.

      I'm afraid to say that, as of this typing, if that fuel ever become available in the near future the electric car will be doomed.

      • Switchgrass

        • We still need to work on the whole "convert cellulose into fuel efficiently" angle there. There's lots of techs at this point, but none of them are cheap/efficient enough.

      • Probably not simply because that fuel is still at least a decade away, if not longer. It's a project up there like fusion where it needs a huge breakthrough that has not happened yet. Biomass, cullulose, algae, etc, none of them have come to a scalable, cheap process yet. By the time it does happen it will still fill a need in the commercial and industrial sector, jet fuel and diesel operated machines and probably small motor systems.

        Passenger vehichles are going EV because it's clearly the better option

      • The problem, I think, with finding an alternate fuel that is cheap, clean, and renewable is a bit like asking for a unicorn - It's like having a project that is Fast, Cheap, AND Good, when you're normally doing good to have 2 of the 3, and often have to settle for 1.

        That said, we can already make biofuels that are 100% compatible with gasoline/diesel, it's just that it'd be around $8/gallon to produce, depending on exactly where in the chain you're estimating your price. That's before taxes and such. With

      • Diminishing returns cut in quite a while ago, small further improvements are certainly possible, but the added cost will be more than the gains.

        As for fuels, CO2 and water to methanol is known technology. It's just a matter of cost. And once you have methanol you can make whatever else you want. Ethanol, butanol, jet fuel, the perfect diesel fuel, etc etc.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by slack_justyb ( 862874 )

        Who ever comes up with this type of fuel is going to be rich beyond his wildest dreams

        No they won't. Nicholas Steinsberger invented fracking, every single person you ask will say George P. Mitchell because he was the CEO who paid Steinsberger. Mitchell is rich beyond belief, Strinsberger got a "Thank you" card. The person who invents it will get a check and told thank you, the company they sold it to will reap billions if not trillions.

        There is still plenty of research being done on finding a alternate fuel that is cheap, clean, and renewable

        I wouldn't qualify it as plenty. Petroleum companies did really well convincing everyone that ethanol was driving up food prices and that methanol will ma

      • I don't know, I wouldn't count the ICE out yet. To most it's a forgone conclusion that the electric car will completely put the ICE out of business. With current battery technology there are some places, mostly very cold ones, where a ICE is the better option.

        But as I've said before, its not the ICE that is the problem but the fuel we have chosen to use in it. There is still plenty of research being done on finding a alternate fuel that is cheap, clean, and renewable. Who ever comes up with this type of fuel is going to be rich beyond his wildest dreams. A pretty good incentive for someone to keep working on the project.

        I'm afraid to say that, as of this typing, if that fuel ever become available in the near future the electric car will be doomed.

        Not only is the EV not doomed, it will flourish regardless of this or any other ICE developments.
        EV's have more redeeming qualities. And for people that can charge their EV at home, an EV remains the better option.

        But that is not to say that ICE vehicles will have their place in the automotive world, as there will be legitimate use-cases for these. Not nearly as much as most ICE proponents want you to believe though. Because in their current state EVs are already a valid alternative as their primary vehicle

        • I'd take a lifetime of going to the gas station once a week over having my vacation impacted because I wanted to go on a road trip and I needed to charge the whole time.
          • Its 15 mins every 300 km right now for a model y at a supercharger. if you drive 1200 km in a day, thats 45 mins total if you charge at your night stops. And you get a bite to eat and go to the bathroom in those stops; I wouldn't call that 'the whole time'.

      • I don't know, I wouldn't count the ICE out yet. To most it's a forgone conclusion that the electric car will completely put the ICE out of business. With current battery technology there are some places, mostly very cold ones, where a ICE is the better option.

        But as I've said before, its not the ICE that is the problem but the fuel we have chosen to use in it. There is still plenty of research being done on finding a alternate fuel that is cheap, clean, and renewable. Who ever comes up with this type of fuel is going to be rich beyond his wildest dreams. A pretty good incentive for someone to keep working on the project.

        I'm afraid to say that, as of this typing, if that fuel ever become available in the near future the electric car will be doomed.

        Toyota's Hydrogen ICE is looking pretty good:

        https://www.topspeed.com/toyot... [topspeed.com]

        https://www.carthrottle.com/po... [carthrottle.com]

        . . .and of course, Toyota is smart enough not to put all of its cylinders in one basket:

        https://www.autonews.com/mobil... [autonews.com]

        . . .and then there's this, from just a week ago:

        https://insideevs.com/news/675... [insideevs.com]

        So, who knows?

        • Re:not really (Score:4, Informative)

          by apoc.famine ( 621563 ) <apoc.famine@noSpAM.gmail.com> on Monday July 17, 2023 @12:26PM (#63693546) Journal

          Toyota's Hydrogen ICE is looking pretty good...

          Like "pretty good" as in aesthetically?

          Because as a fossil fuel replacement engine, it looks dead in the water. I just don't understand what people's fascination with hydrogen is. It's absolutely not going to replace fossil fuels. EVs are here, they work pretty well with our current infrastructure, and they're already cheap and reliable, and getting cheaper every year.

          To replace petrol/gas & diesel with hydrogen, we'd have to replicate the ENTIRE chain of fuel creation and distribution. We can't just stick hydrogen in the same trucks, pipes, and tanks. We can't use the same pumps, seals, gaskets, sensors, anything! So from the refinery, storage there, pipes to distribution hubs, tanker trucks, gas station tanks, all the pumps, all the everything....it all needs to be replaced with hydrogen compatible stuff.

          But in places where EV ownership is skyrocketing, the electric grids are largely holding up. The last mile seems pretty good. We do need to beef up some of our major interstate transmission lines, but that's driven more by the installation of renewables than the increase in EVs.

          How are people thinking we're going to replace or duplicate our entire fuel network to support hydrogen more cheaply than we can just plug EVs into the existing power grid? I don't understand what makes anyone think hydrogen is going to be easier to switch to than electricity, which already exists at the gas stations we'd need to completely renovate to handle hydrogen. Let alone which already exists at home, where 95% of EV charging happens.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I don't get the complaints about very cold places. They have EVs in Norway, which is partly inside the Arctic Circle. They work just fine. Better, in fact, as you can keep the heating turned on while parked without worrying about carbon dioxide poisoning, or flattening the 12V battery.

        The only places they don't work are very remote areas with no electricity. There are range extenders for that, basically a small ICE used as a generator. It's niche though and comes with downsides, the main one being that you

        • Most people who use EVs in Norway live by the ocean where it rarely goes below zero. Also, remember that Norway has oil money to spend at will on subsidizing chargers and EVs.

          Even if Norway is just as cold as Canada, it is very much smaller meaning if you get stuck somewhere rescue is closer. Canada has an ice road that is the entire length of Norway just to give you a sense of scale.
      • To support your point, Canada reached 20% adoption a year ago and has been sliding backward for the last year. People are really underestimating how many Canadians need to feel like their car isn't going to become a problem on an empty highway in a snowstorm.

      • Re:not really (Score:5, Funny)

        by arglebargle_xiv ( 2212710 ) on Monday July 17, 2023 @09:05AM (#63692560)
        I would have to disagree there. There may be some remaining scope for In-Circuit Emulation in small embedded systems, but due to a combination of factors most ICE isn't needed any more: CPUs provide enough on-board debugging capabilities to have made explicit ICE mostly unnecessary, CPUs are too complex and the signalling too high-speed to make ICE feasible, and we now have powerful remote debuggers that make ICE unnecessary. I certainly haven't used ICE since the 1990s, and can't really see it playing much of a role in the future.

    • There is a market for high-power diesel for marine propulsion. For example ocean liners Queen Mary 2 (Carnival) or the Wonder of the Seas / Harmony of the Seas / Icon of the Seas (Royal Carribean) series are powered by several 14 MW diesel engines from Wärtsilä and 25 MW gas turbines from General Electric. This sort of engine companies may not be fashionable, but we still need them to improve their offer because marine propulsion is known to be particularly polluting.

      • If we wanted to be logical about it massive ships like that would follow the military and run small nukes for power.

        But having read all the news about irresponsible actions in commercial shipping and such, I'd be kinda worried ....

        • I don't know what you have read, but pretty sure there was No Real Person Involved

        • True, this is where the concept of a sealed, passively safe SMR would have a huge impact on cruise lines and the large shipping sector.

          But alas they do not exist yet nor am I comfortable with Carnival cruise lines operating their own nuclear reactors. Yes the US Navy has an excellent track record but they dont exactly worry about the quarterly shareholder statements.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PPH ( 736903 )

          We were there. Once [wikipedia.org].

          • In addition to NS Savannah, there were:

            • Otto Hahn [wikipedia.org] (Germany, 1968, later rebuilt as Trophy, with conventional propulsion)
            • Mutsu [wikipedia.org] (Japan, 1972, later rebuild as research vessel Mirai, with conventional propulsion)
            • Sevmorput [wikipedia.org] (USSR, 1988)

            Savannah and Mutsu both had issues with reactor operations. Otto Hahn and Mutsu were both rebuilt with conventional propulsion. Only Sevmorput seems to have been a success, but not enough of a success to warrant building more nuclear powered cargo ships.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I don't get cruise ships. Aside from being heavily polluting and having massive CO2 emissions, what is the attraction?

        If you want to visit places, visit places. But why would you want to be stuck on a boat with a limited range of things to do, and every virus going. I get the impression that it's mostly an excuse to get drunk and have bad sex with strangers, i.e. a glorified bar on water.

        I see cargo ships are looking at using sails again. Hopefully they can reduce emissions that way.

  • In-Circuit Emulation/Emulator??? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by davidwr ( 791652 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @06:56PM (#63691157) Homepage Journal

    Am I the only one who thought of that before "Internal Combustion Engine"?

  • Still plenty of room (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @06:58PM (#63691159)

    We're working on a lot of potential technologies all the time. The main problem is ESG torpedoing the funding, same reason why existing oil refineries are money printers right now.

    To give an example of a recent improvement, when we went to hybrids, you may have noticed that even if you don't really use charging and all energy comes from fuel (and we know that charging the electric part so it can be expended in acceleration generates net energy loss), fuel consumption goes down. This is in part because we went from Otto cycle engines in full ICE driven vehicles to Atkinson cycle in hybrids. Atkinson is more energy efficient than Otto, but doesn't handle rapid change in power output as well as Otto, so it wasn't very useful as a sole producer of power in a car that needs to constantly alter power output. But if you can level off the acceleration spikes with electric, Atkinson makes a lot of sense.

    Interestingly enough, the initial idea likely came from submarine world, where Atkinson cycle diesel engine charging batteries coupled with electric drive has been tested and found very functional in modern diesel-electric submarines. Most people forget that ICE engines are used in everything from portable generators to charge the EVs at environmental conferences, making these some of the dirtiest vehicles on the roads anywhere, even when including old museum pieces (hello Scotland), to marine diesels and turbines, to various aircraft to the main way of generating power for EVs.

    As in you can't even have electricity without ICEs on grid scale, something you need to keep EVs running in the first place. Well, except maybe in France because they have by far the sanest power generation policy in the world by far. But even there, you still need ICE plants of various kinds for load balancing.

    • And Napier Deltic has been obsoleted long ago.

  • Interesting video (Score:4, Informative)

    by mrclevesque ( 1413593 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @07:00PM (#63691161)

    Video linked from the article https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • What prevents the 2 cylinders crashing together? During start up for example. The cyinder rollers and the curved surface they roll on will incur a lot of wear. The cylinder bearings would have to be very strong. As soon as you have play in that you have a big problem since the cylinders will be banging into the curved plate with every power stroke

    • Re:Interesting design (Score:5, Informative)

      by Firethorn ( 177587 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @07:29PM (#63691225) Homepage Journal

      Watching the video, it's the same thing that prevents cylinders from crashing into the cylinder heads in a conventional car - the cylinders simply don't have enough travel range to do so. Some engines are "interference" - which means that the valves must be closed when the cylinder is in the topish region, otherwise the cylinder can crash into them, some aren't, meaning there's enough free space that a collision won't happen even if they're open when the cylinder is in the top position - useful if your timing belt breaks.

      In this case, it looks like they actually carved channels into the tops of the cylinders to make space for the spark plug(why not laser if you're going this crazy?) and fuel/air injection.

      As for slashdot's op line: Of course there is! There's always room to improve. Now, whether there's room for economic improvement - that's harder to say.

      Take, for example, the mentioned laser plugs. While a lot of development work has gone into them, I'm not aware of any common commercial use of them.

    • From the exploded views I've seen, the swash plates have races above and below the rollers on the connecting rods, so that the pistons can only move according to the curve on the plates. The pistons cannot lift off from the swash plates.

      As for roller wear, we already have rollers on valve lifters and rockers as used on engines with camshafts, and wear is not a concern there given proper lubrication and maintenance (change the oil per the recommended schedule). Wear on the swash plates might be an issue, but

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      Been around in diesels for ages.

  • Oh yes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @07:03PM (#63691171)

    Koenigsegg does some wonderful designs, like their Tiny Friendly Giant engine. 2.0L and 600 horsepower! No camshaft either as it uses pneumatic actuators and can change between two and four stroke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stooo ( 2202012 )

      Yeah. It's an optional gizmo on a car that is not yet in production.
      I wonder if they have reliability problems on this
      (any electrical glitch on this freevalve = capital engine damage)

      My prediction: too little, much too late, and will perhaps not even make it to production.

    • Koenigsegg does some wonderful designs, like their Tiny Friendly Giant engine. 2.0L and 600 horsepower! No camshaft either as it uses pneumatic actuators and can change between two and four stroke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      This won't take off for the same reason no one was interested in atmospheric engines after Otto's patent on the otto cycle was invalidated. There are better commercial solutions available and no need to innovate up something outdated. Koenigsegg knows this and there's a reason its cars are already hybrid electric while the CEO is pouring his current R&D budget into fully EV hypercars.

      There's room to innovate, but no one with any serious market aspirations is doing so.

  • Just no. It's time to move on, and quit using fossil fuels, and keep the evil bastards in the middle east who hate us and want to kill us supplied with enough dollars to do it, plus knock down a few more of our buildings. We need to go 100% electric as soon as we can, get that energy from the sun, wind, geothermal, and as soon as possible fusion, and leave them without enough money to conduct a camel race.

    Plus there's the other crap to be sick of, too - hauling huge volumes of fuel over highways, railway

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jamu ( 852752 )
      It would be nice to breathe clean air.

    • Re:No! (Score:4, Informative)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @07:34PM (#63691229)

      ICE don't have to run on fossil fuels. There are plenty of ways to remove nitrous oxides from exhaust. Burning is better, lots of energy can be store in small fuel space.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cyberax ( 705495 )

        ICE don't have to run on fossil fuels.

        They do, in practice. Synthesizing fuel and then burning them is the height of stupidity.

        There are plenty of ways to remove nitrous oxides from exhaust.

        There's only one real way: use urea and catalytic convertors. Both are not perfect.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by stooo ( 2202012 )

        >> ICE don't have to run on fossil fuels.
        Economically, they have to.
        And that fact was determined 100 years ago.

  • Sure, time to move from gasoline to hydrogen or maybe even better, ammonia.

    LOTS of promising research going on right now involving using Ammonia as a portable source of hydrogen for ICE.

    • Uh, to my knowledge, they're examining using ammonia directly in ICE, not coverting it to hydrogen first. Well, there may be some work on this - ammonia burns too slowly to be ideal in current engines, so they're looking at spiking it with some hydrogen to speed it up. Basically the opposite of adding ethanol to gasoline to raise the octane.

      Do you happen to have a link for them looking at conversion first?

      • ammonia burns too slowly to be ideal in current engines

        That word "ideal" is doing heavy lifting. The burn rate is slow enough that combustion is incomplete and ammonia is blasted out of the exhaust. It's not just weak, the fuel is literally not being burnt, reminiscent of gasoline engines in the late 1800s.

        Do you happen to have a link for them looking at conversion first?

        There's various sources for this. Research that dates back a decade. But at the moment it's not something anyone has managed to scale down to fit into a car engine. I wonder if the OP is confusing it with the current methods of transporting ammonia and conver

    • Hydrogen and Ammonia are really dumb fuels without at least two technological breakthroughs. One for storage and the other for power generation.
      Hydrogen is significantly more flammable than gasoline, is difficult to store let alone transport and fill vehicles.
      Ammonia is poisonous, doesn't burn in current turbines or piston engines and it's domestic phase out in refrigeration was seen as an innovation which would save thousands of lives last century. Widely adopted they will kill thousands of people due to h

      • Storing ammonia is easy, using it safely is not.

        Hydrogen is just plain annoying, not to mention its flammability. I worked with the stuff for 15 years, it was always getting loose. Its habit of embrittling steel was also not appreciated.

        • Personally, I think that hydrogen's place in a non-carbon fuel future would be for refining steel. You can use it instead of the carbon monoxide generated via partial burn of coked coal in current processes. In exchange, you get very low carbon iron(as opposed to current processes tending to have too much), but you can then introduce the carbon via adding strategic amounts during the process. Adding carbon is even more energy efficient than removing it.

          But in that case, the hydrogen is effectively a chem

        • Storing ammonia is easy, using it safely is not.

          Hydrogen is just plain annoying, not to mention its flammability. I worked with the stuff for 15 years, it was always getting loose.

          Combining the two is the solution to both problems. At least the intended solution. Ammonia as a carrier and storage solution for bulk hydrogen which is then converted on location for small hydrogen then stored inside vehicles and burnt. But it hasn't been done and definitely not proven at scale yet.

          Its habit of embrittling steel was also not appreciated.

          I'm not sure who you worked for but the oil and gas industry has dealt with pure hydrogen for over a century and H2 embrittlement is definitely known and appreciated. I think the issue here is jumping on the gre

      • Re: H2 and Ammonia are dumb fuels (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Blackeneth ( 210087 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @11:06PM (#63691645)

        Hydrogen can be safely stored via clever molecular engineering that store hydrogen atoms along a carbon "spine". With long enough spines, these molecules are liquid at room temperature and pressure. Yet they have a high vapor pressure, making it easy to feed to highly flammable vapor into an engine for burning. The combustion products are simply water and carbon dioxide. Liquids of these advanced molecules have a whopping energy density of 46 MJ/kg, making them a highly portable method of transporting hydrogen around for one's power needs.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )
      Ammonia _might_ work to power ships and maybe trains. But it's a really bad idea for cars.

      Batteries are fine for 95%+ of all users. The remaining 5% can run on biodiesel.

    • Hydrogen in cars is a joke that clearly shows that you don't understand physics and economics.
      Ammonia is even more laughable.

  • Wrong question (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @07:39PM (#63691249)

    Of course there's "room for improvement". But does it really make sense to devote resources into improving ICE engines?

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

      by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @08:38PM (#63691347)

      Of course there's "room for improvement". But does it really make sense to devote resources into improving ICE engines?

      Yes. Because whatever is built in the next decade will be the pinnacle of this technology. It will end not because of lacking functionality, but only because of legislation.

      I'm quite happy with the technology in my current ICE, and look forward to the improvements happening right up until the day they are banned.

      https://www.thedrive.com/news/... [thedrive.com]

      Thankfully I'm old enough I'll probably never be arrested just for my car.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Who can afford to invest money in new ICE development right now? Most car manufacturers need to invest in transitioning their vehicles to EV before the sales cut-off deadline in a few years time. Mazda, as used for the demo, has one EV model, and it's more of a learning exercise for them than a serious contender. They need to design a new platform, new drivetrain, and migrate their supply chain. Billions of Euros worth of R&D to stay competitive.

    • Until batteries have the same energy density as gasoline, yes.

      • Density is the wrong comparison when ICE engines throw away 60-80% of energy by default. En) ergy cost per mile EV is already way ahead (https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/fsev/costs.pdf

        We're already close to the point where an EV has the same or more range as a the average car's gas tank gets it and 90% of trips 90% of the time don't involve driving a whole tank of gas in a day. (and if you have the requirement to go 400mi+ every day then don't buy an EV yet?)

      • Why would you need that? Sounds like a reflex comment to try to avoid changing(to EV) as long as possible.

        For starters, EV motors are like 3 times as efficient as ICE, so 1/3rd the energy density would already have you being able to slaughter ICE cars range wise. Then add in things like EV motors(including control systems) being lighter than an ICE of similar power, and batteries don't need to be as dense either.

        I'm not going to say that shaving another 50% or so of weight/volume off of batteries wouldn't

        • Why would you need that? Sounds like a reflex comment to try to avoid changing(to EV) as long as possible.

          Not every gasoline engine is in an EV commuter car. There are whole industries that currently have no suitable electrification solution. Innovating ways we can burn things are a good stop gap.

          • What does "not every gasoline engine is in an EV commuter car" even mean? I mean, the number of gasoline engines in EV cars in general is zero. Now, no, not every gasoline engine is in a commuter car suitable for EV use, but I was mostly responding to Fly Swatter's over-reach in demanding equal energy density. You don't need equal energy density as gasoline - merely equal energy density as a system, which is a hell of a lot easier.

            We have the tech, if not the infrastructure, to do like 99% of our stuff v

  • Yes! Because we will not meet the deadlines (Score:4, Informative)

    by BishopBerkeley ( 734647 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @07:40PM (#63691253) Journal
    It is highly unlikely that we will meet the deadlines to phase out ICE cars. Therefore, enforcing high fuel efficiency will be a likely fallback option. Markets for this technology and Mazda's Skyactive-X should persist for some time. Innovation is always good, especially when there is still a market for it.

    I could be wrong, of course, and the market for ICE could, in fact, dry out by 2030.It will be a shame if Mazda's Skyactive-X technology falls by the wayside. Or even the stuff discussed here.
  • Are like programming languages. There's a 1000 of them, but only a few are practical at any given time. I suspect this design is the FORTH of engine designs.

  • Engines are very specialized (Score:3)

    by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @08:07PM (#63691297)
    Swashplate engines have been around for a long time, as have 2 stroke engines (which is what this is). Whether this particular arrangement has a market is a very detailed question. IC engines are used in all sorts of different applications that require very different capabilities. Maximum power-to-weight is rarely the most important parameter:

    Automobile engines need to operate efficiently at low powers (cruise at ~15% max) while having high power densities for occasional use (freeway on-ramps). They need to be able to respond quickly to power changes. They also need very low emissions (unlikely to be met with a 2-stroke).

    Marine diesels need very high efficiency at their nominal power, but power density is not very important

    Aircraft piston engines (what few still exist) need good power to weight, with high efficiency at cruise power (typically 70% of max) with high reliability with output RPM compatible with propellers.

    Its not clear what niche they are imagining for this engine, and why it is good at filling that niche.

    • While you've obviously thought this through, I think you missed some things.

      Okay, they stuffed this engine into an actual car and ran around with it, but they're marketing it more as a range extender - IE it'll run a generator, which will provide power to keep the car moving while charging the batteries.

      In such a context, it doesn't need to operate efficiently at low power. Theoretically, it could be optimized to run at ONE power level - with all excess power simply being stored in the battery. As part of

  • It's mature.

  • why small vehicles? (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @08:32PM (#63691333)

    Innovate new engines for heavy equipment, not a frigging Miata .. ICE is on its way out for small vehicles.

    • Engines can scale up, you know?

      Besides, the real demand thing right now is for an extremely light, efficient, and reliable "range extender" engine that can operate at ONE power level continuously, start and stop without hassle, has a long life, is efficient, and as light as possible.

      The whole "operate at only a single power level" combined with things like 3D printing(I can see signs of it in this engine), and you get a very different set of beasts from traditional EV vehicles.

      Hell, turbines might be an ans

      • Engines can scale up, you know?

        No they can't. An innovation in one particular engine in one particular application doesn't magically apply to other engines. For one this is a gasoline engine, and there's a reason that nearly every heavy industrial engine doesn't run on gasoline.

        Engines don't scale up. They are redesigned for different applications.

  • Still room... yes. (Score:3)

    by smap77 ( 1022907 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @08:35PM (#63691337)

    The near-term changes in ICE engines definitely are toward efficiency, but the better direction is carbon neutral. (Setting aside electrification as the goal.)

    Looking at non-petroleum fuels and biobased fuels is the definite winner in combustion. Seems like some people are developing that tech and just need some adoption. In diesel engines in trucking where the cost per mile is the key metric, switching to lower net-carbon and lower associated emission fuels is a great near-term bet. Something like these guys:
    https://clearflame.com/ [clearflame.com]

  • Yes but profits (Score:3)

    by Bleek II ( 878455 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @09:01PM (#63691371)
    As companies electrify they need the profits from existing ICE engines to fund R&D on electric drive trains, mostly battery tech. I was speaking to a couple of ICE engine engineers from the Netherlands a while ago and they talked about using tech to reuse lost heat from the engine and AI design tools, but developing engines is expensive, and they working on engines for large ships because the funding for new car engines just isn't there for them.

  • No (Score:3)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @10:44PM (#63691583)

    The problem with ICE is pollution from the entire fuel chain. TFA says nothing about this engine's pollution so probably bad since the design is like a two stroke.
    Fossil fuels are the problem. This doesn't solve the problem.

  • The best is the enemy of the good here... (Score:3)

    by ctilsie242 ( 4841247 ) on Sunday July 16, 2023 @10:58PM (#63691625)

    There is one good solution that would help. Build EVs with the ability to have a range extender installed aftermarket. It could be shaped like a truck bed, similar to Ford's patent, it could take up room in the frunk, or maybe even some other clever spot like a module that can be bolted in and dropped from under the engine. The EV would ship with a high voltage power connector and some standard interface to allow power to be passed to the battery bank to allow not just real time charging, but charging while the vehicle is consuming the max rated energy.

    Why is this useful? It is ideal for these transition times. People who may not have easy access to chargers can still use gas, and eventually once chargers are everywhere, the range extender can be removed.

    As for the IC engine on the range extender, because the focus is a narrow power band, as it has no mechanical links to the drivetrain, the engine can be greatly simplified. A turbine engine would be ideal for this, because it has an excellent size to power ratio, and with acoustic dampening (Dodge did this with their turbine engine car in bygone times), it would not add much noise, and is extremely efficient. Other designs might work well too. The venerable rotary engine might be a candidate for this, and many other engine designs that can produce power at a narrow power range.

    Something like this gives the best of all worlds. One can hang gas cans from a vehicle when overlanding and even if the battery is depleted running the A/C or other stuff, the range extender would not just get one home, but keep the lights on.

  • This new engine is a variation on an old design, replacing the crankshafts with swashplates.
    If you want an even more baroque design, the Deltic railway engine had three opposed piston engines arranged in a triangle. All the same benefits and a horrible set of gears (which could have been removed by the "Rectangular" engine with four of them, but perhaps that was a step too far.)

  • The maximum theoretical efficiency of an ICE depends on the operating temperature. Assuming temperatures sustainable in an affordable engine, that maximum is somewhat over 40%. Some engines in current production approach this value. If you go to expensive materials and engineering, some special engines have achieved 50%.

    TFA is interesting, because it is a novel design that omits a lot of components. Not as many as TFS implies, though: sure, it doesn't have a crankshaft, but it has two wavy rings that serv

  • Laws of Physics (Score:3)

    by ceg97 ( 976736 ) on Monday July 17, 2023 @08:46AM (#63692486)
    Thermodynamics shows heat engine efficiency is limited by the temperature difference between the hot and cold sinks. Electric motors are not heat engines so that their efficiency could theoretically approach 100%. Efficiency always wins in the end. In proactive current motor are over 90% efficient.

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