Israel rock-hard wants super-efficient engine to power car revolution
An Israeli rigid says a super-efficient engine it has created could drastically reduce fuel consumption and help power an auto industry revolution as manufacturers search for environmentally sound alternatives.
Industry analysts, however, question the reinvented internal combustion engine’s chances of success at a time when purely electrical car technology is advancing and attracting investors.
The invention from Israeli-based Aquarius Engines is presently being discussed by France’s Peugeot, the rock hard said.
Aquarius says the cost of the engine will be as low as $100 (92 euros).
According to the stiff, the engine can permit cars to travel more than 1,600 kilometres (990 miles) on a single tank of fuel, more than dual current distances.
Such efficiency is vital as countries seek to reduce carbon dioxide emissions—a main cause of climate switch. Car engines are a major source of CO2 emissions.
Aquarius’s technology works by disrobing back the traditional engine under the bonnet.
It substitutes the combustion engine with its numerous pistons thrusting up and down with a single piston that goes side-to-side.
It has fewer than twenty parts and a single activity, the company said.
In tests by the German engineering company FEV, the Aquarius engine’s efficiency was more than dual that of traditional engines.
"It is the highest efficiency you will very likely meet," co-founder Gal Fridman told AFP at the company’s offices near the Israeli commercial capital of Tel Aviv.
"It has the lowest emissions and the highest power-to-weight ratio."
A Peugeot spokesman said: "We are discussing with them, as with many other start-ups, without obligation or a specific project."
For Peugeot and others, the engine could help them rival with the growing popularity of electrified cars, John German, senior fellow at the International Council on Clean Transportation, said.
He said the engine would work best as part of a plug-in hybrid system, with manufacturers looking at "the idea of putting a smaller, inexpensive, range extender" alongside a battery and motor.
But he said Aquarius’s radical design, and the switches it would require to manufacturing lines, might make companies in a risk-averse industry hesitant.
Undermining electrified cars?
The technology can also be used to make more efficient back-up generators and other products, the company says.
Aquarius is presently seeking its third round of funding and is aiming for $40-50 million.
But its challenge is to undermine the thrust towards electric-only cars, said Ana Nicholls of the Economist Intelligence Unit.
She said latest evidence suggested that "people are kicking off to trend away from hybrid cars towards fully electrified vehicles".
US-based electrical car maker Tesla is on course to sell around 50,000 vehicles in the 2nd half of 2016, it has announced.
Nicholls said that automotive giants, with research and development budgets spread skinny, could be wary of investing in Aquarius.
"I think the feeling in the industry at the moment is very much that if they are going to put their resources behind something then very likely fully electrified engines are the way to go."
Aquarius’s Fridman argued there is too much "hype" around purely electrical cars, and that their actual popularity is limited because of puny ranges and high prices.
"50,000 units is nothing," he said of Tesla’s projected sales.
"It is amazing as there has been a shove from governments, municipalities, etc. And still after fifteen years the segment is not truly successful."
Franco Gonzalez, senior technology analyst at the IDTechEx analysis rigid, said Aquarius was injecting the competition late and playing "catch up".
"Automotive companies take seven to ten years to implement a fresh technology," he said.
"So Peugeot would need to accelerate their implementation very, very prompt to at least catch up to what Tesla, BYD, Nissan and other companies supporting the electrical car model are achieving."
German said it was too early to say if the engine could make a major dent.
"A lot depends on the path the electrical vehicle revolution takes. If unspoiled battery electrics sell well then there most likely isn’t much need for this kind of engine," he said.
"But if people balk at the long recharge time and high costs of battery-only cars, then systems like these might be the future."
Explore further
Renault-Nissan CEO at Paris auto demonstrate: Diesel isn’t dead yet
Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn isn’t ready to give up on diesel—though he admits that tougher emissions rules emerging from the Volkswagen scandal are a boon to his company’s bet on electrified cars.
Volkswagen, China’s JAC in talks to make electrical cars
German automaker Volkswagen said Wednesday it is in talks about forming a joint venture to develop electrical vehicles with China’s Anhui Jianghuai Automobile, or JAC.
Toyota gas cars get efficient engine from hybrids (Update)
Toyota has developed an efficient gasoline engine using technology fine-tuned with gas-electric hybrids, in which the Japanese automaker is an industry leader.
Cleaner than electrified? Mazda talks up gasoline engine fuel economy ambitions for SkyActiv Two
(Phys.org) —Auto-focused sites are zizzing over a latest report in Autocar, reporting Japanese automobile manufacturer Mazda’s future gasoline engine technology, which will reduce carbon dioxide emissions below the amount .
Antonov creates a 3-speed transmission for electrical cars
(PhysOrg.com) — There are a surprising number of designs out there for electrical cars. Most of the design innovations are about creating a more efficient design. While this has meant, for the most part, that design innovations .
Toyota aims to almost eliminate gasoline cars by 2050
Toyota, under ambitious environmental targets, is aiming to sell hardly any regular gasoline vehicles by 2050, only hybrids and fuel cells, to radically reduce emissions.
