Mazda Skyactive-X compression ignition petrol
 

Maybe a bit late to the game but the next step in ICE seems to have arrived. There is potential for a 63g/km and 100mpg car in a Mazda 2 but with petrol and not diesel.

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-new...ne-due-in-2019

Too little, too late - we're close to the tipping point against ICE cars, as reflected in VAG recent R&D announcement on EV development. This Mazda would've been in the works before that point, but I can't see there being many more ICE R&D ideas coming to fruition from now on.

Internal combustion is not dead yet!
There's plenty of emissions targets still to fulfill which will lead to engine improvements.

Skyactiv is already a great technology which I can't understand why more manufacturers haven't adopted similar technology (14:1 compression with direct injection). Other engine development leaders turbocharge I suppose...

Skyactiv X is an interesting technology if it works on a mass production scale. Cleaner emissions than diesel with similar fuel consumption... Renders diesel obsolete, at least in cars...


It's only some Europe and some Asian countries who have announced zero emission target dates so far.
Australia hasn't - range issues, and a bit of bloody mindedness
America hasn't - ignorance and range issues if they actually considered it. Ironically, some States are ahead of their federal government in zero emission targets.
The majority of countries looking at EV targets will allow hybrid technology even in 2050. Technology itself will probably trump them by then anyway.

The Pommie imaginary ambition of "no internal combustion vehicles on the road by 2050" is unrealistic in regards to classic cars. Finding fuel for them may be an issue however, if all service stations convert to charging stations.

Hi,

Agreeing with an Ausie is hard on principle but yes, too right mate!

I have seen Cinema, vinyl records, marriage and school exams revived and re-worked, my brass is NOT in electric only vehicles.

Robert "Luddite"

There's a lot of logistical issues with electric cars too.
For example, English cities are full of terraced houses with no off-street parking. Cars are never parked in the same place one day to another. How are those car owners going to charge their cars?
It's not an insurmountable problem, but who's going to install the infrastructure? Who's going to repair it when it inevitably breaks or gets vandalised? Who's going to pay for the power?
Or are they banking on some breakthrough to solve these problems? Or pass it onto the private sector as normal...


As for the future of oil, have a watch of this video:
Youtube

That's easy:already solved - EVs charge via sockets built into lamp posts - several of my London-based Tesla buddies do this on a daily basis: providers exist, and it's just like signing up for any other utility. Sure beats having to move your car to drive to a petrol station and then come back and find your parking space has been taken. Especially in bad weather :D

Next question?

That depends on having enough street lights on the street and then being able to park near it! On my street there are about three street lights and 15 houses, each with about 2 cars at least. Some can clearly charge at home, but then will they able to boil the kettle at the same time...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...fuse-national/

There are a lot of things which need to be in place in the next 20 years, I'm sure it's possible as technology improves but only time will tell.

We have very few street lights on our road, though there is one exactly at the entrance to my drive. :D
Even more conveniently, because it's on a corner, the only place you can park to use it is on my drive. Somehow I don't think that one will ever get converted for charging, unless they all are.....

+++

I don't think combustion is dead yet (just lose the 'internal' part).
The next level will be using combustion to generate electricity directly for electric motors.
This is the most efficient way to turn combustion into motion. There are already technologies for very efficient conversion of heat to electricity if certain companies are to be believed. Combustion is of course very efficient at producing heat.

This is something was thinking about the other day, could the "jet" car finally come of age - small turbine driven generator (like an aircraft APU)?

Yaawwnnnn.....
 

That's a bit like saying there should be petrol pump for every car.. :rolleyes: The whole point about electricity is that it's everywhere. Think of it as bit like wifi: I carry around my mobile phone and use that hotspot for connectivity, but only rarely, as there are so many other (free!) places to get online. It's the same if you have an EV, and there are already plenty of charge locations of all types, so there's really no issue with charge availability.

And that telegraph article is patently bull**** - it's been roundly dismissed elsewhere, and it's just typically of the lazy journalism these days (and copy and pasting... :ROFL: ) that no-one bothers to check this sort of rubbish anymore. Fake News!

Well no, because there is the significant issue of refuelling time in relation to travel/useage time.
Until that is solved (e.g. by battery swapping?) the infrastructure, logistics, arithmetic etc. of EV's will be fundamentally different to petrol.

Probably out of date now, but this gives an idea:
"If a Supercharger station is out of reach, most public charging stations can recharge the Model S at the rate of 22 miles of range per hour"
In a petrol station that would be just a few seconds for most cars.
So you potentially need EVs connected to their refuelling devices for several hundreds times more than the hydrocarbon equivalent.

I was thinking of something simpler, no (or very few) moving parts.
Literally just a burner/heater surrounded by these
http://www.powerchips.gi/

This is the company behind Wheeltug which has already been introduced into some passenger planes so perhaps its not complete fiction.

Besides the concept is sound, satellites are powered in a similar way, plutonium providing the heat and using thermocouples to generate electricity. Perhaps these 'powerchips' are a more efficient version of thermocouples?

That's not an issue at all, because driver/owner behaviour changes in an EV - because electricity is everywhere, EV drivers tend to charge when they're parked, not when they're empty - so the comparison with a petrol pump for every car is valid - but I knew I'd get that reaction :D

I don't see much electricity in this picture, unless the Tesla is being recharged from the other 2 cars..... :ROFL:
http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/image.php...ine=1477672258

Doesn't need it - I have a dedicated charger on the drive (out of shot) - one of the many advantages of living up North ;)

All that electricity need to come from somewhere and at the moment UK electricity generation is stretched as it is. It's fine with relatively low number of electric vehicles but if the most were to switch to electric where is that energy going to come from? There are not much new power stations in the pipeline so it will either need to be imported or provided by small scale solar/wind. I don't see oil drilling to go down as we will still need it for other components like jet fuel as i don't see jumbo jets becoming electric any time soon or even ever so we will have abundant supply of diesel and petrol. it could be burned in power stations in more efficient way than ICE and also could take emissions out of cities and to remote areas. So there is massive changes needed to infrastructure.

I would be great if there was universal swap-able batteries for all cars but i don't see it happening for cars, maybe small commercial vehicles. Battery currently is also structural part of car giving it body strength. So for universal interchangeable batteries you would need to make body stronger and heavier which would reduce efficiency.

Charging should be made wireless, efficient and seamless at parking spaces and even while driving on busy roads.

I do see a large benefit in electric vehicles as a store of energy. If you have a car that can do 300 miles on full charge but only do 15 miles a day going to work and back with a help of Smart network you could have it to charge when electricity is cheap/free/ or you you even get paid and then feeding it back to grid at higher price when needed. I know in USA there are some states with large solar power generation that at times they pay neighbouring states just to take energy of them as it' cheaper than shutting down and restarting production. this would increase the wear on battery but most of battery degradation is when it's empty or near full charge. So you could set for example aluminium charge level 15% which should get you to work and back, optimal 30% and max 85%. So it would automatically keep enough energy for you to get to work and back and then charge battery if energy is cheap and possibly sell it back at higher price when needed by rest of grid. It could also act as a backup for your house in event of power outage. And if you are planning a longer journey you can just change settings on your phone/tablet/computer a day or couple before to make sure it is fully charged when needed.

Most satellites are solar powered. There's plenty of Sun around our neighbourhood and solar panels produce far more energy far more efficiently than thermoelectric generators.

Thermoelectric generators produce mere Watts of electricity at any realistic scale. They're mainly used in deep space probes which travel far enough away for the Sun's energy to become ineffective for solar panels.
They're expensive and use a rare form of radioactive isotope for the heat pile, though for power station use or car use, the radioactive isotope is irrelevant.
NASA are working on newer more efficient designs, but they're only 2-3 times more efficient - massive improvement, but still terrible compared to terrestrial alternatives.

Thermocouples are very inefficient at energy conversion (and you reckon internal combustion is inefficient!) and only aid in improving efficiency where there's a plentiful surplus supply of heat energy.
With thermal power stations, they chase the last joule of heat energy from the steam they produce before recovering and reheating that steam to further enhance plant efficiency. There's not a lot of latent waste heat floating around that system where stealing it for a thermocouple wouldn't result in reducing system efficiency. Maybe around the boilers/burners or condensers, but they'd be controlling even that heat quite tightly.

Plenty of waste heat in a car engine however, but a turbocharger is more efficient at using it!

Yes definitely not thermocouples which are only around 6% to 7% efficient , but these new Powerchips of which they won't release the full details about efficiency, etc. Once these technologies are more efficient than a IC engine it will make no sense to have IC engines any more. Diesel locomotives around the world already run on transmissionless IC - electric systems, all their traction motors are AC motors, the diesel IC engine is purely a generator. Only very old diesel locomotives use their diesel engines for direct motion.

Even thermocouples are there already, efficiencies over 20%

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...ium-production

The point I was trying to make about needing enough charging points is that a lot of electric cars don't have brilliant range, so most people would probably want to charge up when they get home from work, a little like charging a mobile phone each night. I suspect in reality there would be options to charge during the day at work, but I can just see a future where people will be arguing over who is using the charge point and maybe even people unplugging others to charge their own (not sure how possible that is as I've never used one).

I linked the Telegraph article but had also read it on the BBC, possibly still a copy and paste of out-dated and incorrect news, who knows what to believe these days anyway!

I'm not against electric cars, I actually like the sounds of the motor as it builds up speed in the same way I like the sound of a V8 but I wonder if it's the best way forward. Maybe it is...:cool:

Surely the Hydrogen Cell will be the death knell for ICE and also alleviate some of the charging issues?

http://www.nextgreencar.com/fuelcellcars/

This is a technology which offers the best hope for range and quick refuelling.
The issues are Hydrogen production (electrolysing water is very energy intensive and inefficient in comparison to the energy reclaimed in the cell, batteries are more efficient in this regard) and storage.

One side benefit is that it could keep petrol stations relevant.

Why would we want that? :)

Errr. who wants to store compressed hydrogen at home?? You have to "refuel" somewhere... they will go from petrol stations to charging stations and finally to hydrogen charging stations.... ;)+++

I doubt it, personally - too complicated and inefficient.

That's what I was thinking - there will be regulatory control on Hydrogen storage anyway, with tested tanks in cars (like LPG currently).
Fuel stations would be a mix, like we currently have Unleaded, Premium, Diesel and LPG.
You'd have Hydrogen, supercharging and fossil fuels mix in proportion to their needs (like currently, controlled by market forces).

With charging stations, it depends on how they're going to be set up. You'll need some sort of formal supercharging infrastructure to allow for long distance travel, unless you plan on parking next to someone's lamp post overnight (lamp post charging won't be supercharged).
Whether this is in the form of cafe's and shopping centres (like currently) or service stations (motorway services). Motorway services makes the most sense for cars on long distance trips.