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germanbird writes: "Jalopnik has an interesting article up about Koenigsegg's Prototype Camless Engine. The engine uses pneumatic actuators rather than a cam to open and close the valves in the engine. The engineers behind this claim that it can provide "30 percent more power and torque, and up to 50 percent better economy" when applied to an existing engine designs. The article and some of the comments also mention that some work has been done with electromagnetic actuators to accomplish the same task. It may be a while before this tech is mature enough for passenger vehicles, but maybe if a racing series or two picked it up, it might give some of the manufacturers the opportunity to work the bugs out?
Not sure this is on topic for SoylentNews, but the article brought me back to my introduction to engineering course in college. One of my classmates was a car nut and I remember a discussion with an EE professor one day about the potential (or actually lack thereof due to performance issues) for using electric actuators to open and close valves."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Friday February 28 2014, @05:19PM
True, but until we do get there ICE's have their place. Also, in cold climates that "waste" heat can be rather useful.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Friday February 28 2014, @05:50PM
Even in cold climates, the waste heat thing isn't that useful; the problem is that it takes a little while for the car engine to warm up enough for your heater to start working. In a Tesla, the car starts blowing hot air from the heater into the cabin and onto the windshield as soon as you start it up. Obviously, this takes a toll on your range, but still, it's a lot more convenient. With a gas car, either you freeze your ass off for 5-10 minutes (depending on how fast you can get on the highway vs. sitting in traffic; car engines don't warm up quickly when idling), or you can remote-start your (automatic only) car and let it idle for 20-30 minutes and warm up, wasting a bunch of gas and also wearing down your engine (engine oil gets contaminated faster at idle, or so I've read).
One thing that helps is to get a car with heated seats and steering wheel. That makes the cold air much more bearable for those first 10 minutes, since heated seats don't take much time to get warm.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday February 28 2014, @07:15PM
Well Electric motors produce waste heat too. You do work, you will invariably waste some heat.
And, given current storage capacity of battery technology, that probably has a much greater effect.
A rich man can lose a 100 dollar bill and not worry, but a poor man can't afford that.
The energy density of Gas/Diesel allows some waste heat, and quite frankly I don't think the industry has even focused on that aspect of efficiency.
If this guy can in fact get 30 percent (which I doubt) it puts us that much closer to wringing as much energy out of gas as is possible.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Friday February 28 2014, @08:43PM
Well Electric motors produce waste heat too.
You've got to be kidding. You do realize that ~95% efficiency is far better than ~30% efficiency, right? No one ever said electric motors were perfect.
And, given current storage capacity of battery technology, that probably has a much greater effect.
Tesla has cars with almost 300-mile range now, largely thanks to that massive efficiency difference. The storage capacity of batteries is not a big problem any more. Their cost/Ah and recharge rates are.
The energy density of Gas/Diesel allows some waste heat, and quite frankly I don't think the industry has even focused on that aspect of efficiency.
Huh? They've been pushing for tiny fuel efficiency improvements for ages. You can only do so much with a Carnot Cycle engine, especially at small scales. Go read about Carnot Cycle on Wikipedia; the other name for an ICE is a "heat engine". The way it works is exploiting the difference in temperature between hot and cold reservoirs, the hot being the combustion and the cold being the environment, and it's limited by the Carnot Theorem; you can only get 100% efficiency with infinite temperature; real-world is 40-60% (closer to 40% for car engines).
If this guy can in fact get 30 percent (which I doubt) it puts us that much closer to wringing as much energy out of gas as is possible.
Simple math: a 30% improvement (which I agree is very highly dubious) on 30% efficiency gets you to 39%, which is still far, far away from ~95%.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Friday February 28 2014, @09:15PM
Even simpler truth: Because you move inefficiency from one place in a system to another, doesn't give you the right to disavow all inefficiency.
For instance Look here: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=107&t=3 [eia.gov]
Follow the 2nd link to the tables, and compute the efficiency of the various methods of electrical generation.
So 40% doesn't look so bad now does it!
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday February 28 2014, @08:48PM
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday February 28 2014, @09:36PM
So what? The efficiency of large power plants is far better than small ICE engines, even after accounting for transmission line losses. There's less pollution too, since power plants are regularly maintained, unlike typical car engines that may or may not be maintained properly, and are frequently kept running long after they should have been junked.