The Car of the Future

The introduction

These subjects, which will be accentuated on this page is about the car of the future. The car of the future will give a great opportunity to think about anything. Many people ask if the car has wheels, and if it has or has not we wont find out until it is produced.

The picture is from the car show in Detroit. It shows a guess of the car of the future. Even though this page is about the car of the future, but the texts is about the technical skills, about the development of the engines. Some of the techniques are already at the market or are produced and almost finished. The page will therefore be about the the things, which will effect the car of the future.

How does the common rail work?

The fuel is fed by a fuel pump from the fuel tank to the 3-plunger radial piston pump, which is driven by the inlet camshaft.

This radial pump discharges the fuel at a pressure of up to 1350 bar (conventional direct injections system operate at a pressure of about 900 bar) into a forged pressure accumilator known as the "common rail", which then supplies the individual injectors vina short injection lines.

Luch injector has a rapid switching solenoid valve which is controlled by the electronic engine management system, thereby enabling the start and duration of injection to be precisely and freely controlled.

With the aid of a pressure sensor, the engine management system adjusts the system pressure via a pressure regulating valve in response to demand, taking account of engine speed and load. Since the high pressure remains constant throughout the injection process regardless of engine speed, the injected fuel droplets are more evently distributed in the combustion chamber, thereby optimising combustion.

Pilot injection or "pre-injection" is of dscisive importance with the COMMON RAIL system. A very small quantily of fuel is injected well in advance of the actual main injection, thereby significantly improving the initial conditions for combustion: the increase in temperature during combustion is not as high as it would be without pilot injection, and the nitrogen oxide content is reduced.

In addition, the high pressure gradients typical of direct injection are reduced, so that the A-class diesel engines achieve even lower noise emissions than a good Mercedes indirect injection engine.

High pressure

World first: common-rail direct injection diesel.

Available from 1998, the 1.7-litre diesel engine with four valves per cylinder, exhaust gas turbocharger and intercooler has an entirely new high-pressure direct injection system (common rail). With this engine, Mercedes is opening a new chapter in the history of diesel direct injection. The H.A fuel consumption is about 5 litres per 100 km. Common rail technology is also used in the variant that will follow six months later, having the same cubic capacity but lower power; this variant has an ELA consumption of only 4.5 litres per 100 km. Like the petrol engines, the diesel engines use lightweight materials such as aluminium and plastic to ensure a very low weight.

Advantages of common rail.

Compared to existing systems, the new high pressure injection system offers in particular better noise characteristics, lower fuel consumption, smoother running and cleaner exhaust. The CO, HC and particulate emissions will be much lower compared to direct injection engines with out common rail. All current emission, and the potential already exists to cut emissions below the impending limits of the future.

The Elsbett Engine

A new alternative to the conventional engines, has arrived. It is called the Elsbett engine and it is an engine which uses the oil from rapes. This initiative, which points in a more ecological direction, does not come frome the big carproducers, who usualy have an enormous expense on exactly research and new developments, but from a german eng2ineconstructor, Ludwig Elsbett. The fact that the engine uses rapeseedoil is not the new revolutionary thing, a conventional dieselengine can do the same. But to avoid the glycerine settling inside the combustionchamber, it is necessary for the rapeseed oil to be treated with metyl-acetate, which has the effect that the glycerin in the oil precipitated. After a such process the oil will be pretty poisonous and must be handled with extremely care. Into the bargain the oil will contain carciogenes, which can cause cancer, and in the end it will remind of conventional dieseloil and the efficiency of the two engines will be to the dieselengines/oils advantage. Then the great thing about the Elsbett engine is the fact that it uses coldpressed vegetable oil. So what were talking about is a special construction where high temperatures in the combustionchamber among other things contributes to the fact that the engine can work at it´s optimum while using the oil from rapeseeds, fish, deepfrying and of course dieseloil.

The vegetable oil can of course come from many places, but if we as an example comtemplate a ha (hectare) of rapes, in conventional agriculture, there can be produced enough rapes to extract about 1000-1200 kg of oil. If we on the other hand contemplate an ha of ecological agriculture, it can produce about 800-900 kg oil. In respectively ecological and non-ecological agricultures this will correspond to a little more and a little less than 20000 km. Concerning the quantity which can be extracted from a ha, the numbers are clearly against ecological agriculture, but in conventional agriculture the use of (artificial) fertilizer and machinery with engines which runs on fossil fuel, are needed/used. On the other hand if machinery with the Elsbett engine are used in an ecological agriculture there will be compensated for the less fuelquantity with the high efficiency. Meanwhile the whole process will be CO2-neutral, and will not contribute to natures unballance which is made by using fossil fuel. When the seeds are pressed there will be a rapecake which is very rich on protein. It can be used as food and then fertilizer.

In contrast to conventional engines ,which in rare cases, as a maximum has an efficiency just below 30 %, the Elsbett engine has an efficiency on more than 40 %. to achieve this high efficiency, the construction in the engine is different from conventional engines. The piston is changed by having oilcooling, which only takes out 14-16 % of the heat from the combustion compared to 28 % and 30 % in gasoline- and diesel engines.

It is not many people who have ever heard of the Elsbett engine, but it has existed since the early 90’s and in the year of 1994, about 1200 cars with the Elsbett engine drove around in the south of germany and gasstations were made so it was ( and still is) possible for the drivers to refuel almost everywhere in the south of Germany. The engine which is used in cars is a 1,5 L engine with 3 cylinders and a turbocharger. It is approved in some cars VW passat, VW Transporter, Audi 100 and Mercedes Benz 190.

Utterly the Elsbett engine is a great thing. That is why it is so hard for us to understand why a such innovative invention is stopped by some businessmen who only tries to see things from a negative point of view like for instance assuming the rape is cultivated in conventional agriculture and used in conventional diesel engines. If it is done that way the whole idea of the Elsbett engine is gone. Because of the high temperatures the engine develops a greater deal of NOx than other engines, but that problem must be possible to solve. Another complaint is the fact that cultivating rapes develops more N2O (laughin gas) also a problem which in a way should be taken care of. Still it is pointless to put such an effort into negative details.

The electric car uses petrol

At the Detroit Motorshow, Chrysler told about his plans for a very special cell of fuel, which gets its necessary fuel from petrol, but normally it uses alcohol. In the cell of fuel the petrol is changing to hydrogen, carbon dioxide and water. The hydrogen is used to give electric force to the car, so it is able to drive.

The reason, why hydrogen is the first thing, which is formed and electricity is formed of hydrogen afterwards, is because you get 50% more energy, when you are making a combustion, than if you fire the petrol direct in the engine. The good thing of this invention is the fact that the exhaust is made of water, which does not pollute. The only thing with this system, which is not good, is that the carbon dioxide contributes to the increasing the average temperature on earth.

In the year of 2015 there will, hopefully be a car ready for tests, but there is one big problem, which people must solve. The hydrogen is not liquid, but it is gaseous and it fill up the tank 3000 times more than petrol.

That is the way a cell of fuel works:

In a cell of fuel it comes to get the electrons to walk, like they do in a battery. In the one electrode (the positive pole) it happens because of reactions of chemistry between oxygen and the material of the electrode, so there will be some ions of oxygen, which will be transported through the electrolyte to the negative pole. The electrolyte is produced of a chemically material. The finished electrolyte is a sheet of electrolyte. In the negative pole the ions of oxygen react with hydrogen, which is a suppliedfuel. Water and available electrons are formed, they are going to be led to the "place of consumption" and then they will continue to the positive pole of the cell of fuel. Battery driven cars

The cars use cocooil

When there is no more oil in the world, the cars are able to drive on vegetable oil, so the cars can drive. Like the Elsbett-engine is able to drive on oil of rape, the cars are also able to drive on oil of coco, which grows on the coco palms at the the South Sea Islands. People claim that a car can drive 1 kilometre per coconut. There will extract one litre oil of ten coconuts. The diesel engine is also able to drive on oil of coco, if it will be formed in another way, so the oil does not leave carbon in at the cylinders.

At the Philippines they use a mixing of 80% diesel and 20% oil of coco, as a fuel for the busses.

Therefore is the oil of coco going to be as popular as the oil of rape in the Elsbett-engine, hopefully also is going to be.

The GDI-engine

The new GDI-engine, which is produced by the Japanes producers of cars, is made for The Mitsubishi and the Toyota. ‘

How the engine works:

There will be injected petrol into the room of internal combustion in the engine, which means that you are able to add small proportion to a given amount of air. We talk about saving of petrol. This method is not new, it is a development of the diesel engine.

Since the year of 1990 the conventional cars have been supplied with fuel injection system, where the petrol has been add the injection nozzles.

The different between the ordinary injection and the direct injection is that in the GDI-engine the injection nozzle is closer to the room of internal combustion, and in conventional engine it is not.

In a conventional and traditional engine the mixture ratio between petrol and aie is 1:15, but in the GDI-engine the ratio is 1:50, which means an enormous saving of petrol, as a matter of fact nearly 30%, while the effect and the feature increase with 10%. The smart thing about the engine is also that the mixing vary after the speed and the load of the car, which is very financial, when you drive in the cities.

The engine has to be constructed in a different way, than in an normal car, which drives on petrol. The combustionchamber and the top of the stamps need to be improved, so they will match the direct injection of petrol. The conditions of compression need to get increased with 25%, so the petrol will be compressed from 3 to 50 bar. The pipe of absorption need to be formed, so it is placed vertical in the combustionchamber.

This engine need two catalysts to fulfri the environment demands.

1. A special catalyst, which need a particular covering of iridium and places as close as the engine as possible. It must reduce the quantity of the nitrogenoxygen, which is not good for the environment.
2. In a conventional catalyst with a covering of platinum, which reduce the quantity of carbon oxide and hydrocarbon.

Some experiments, which shows that there are not problems by keep the EU-demands, so that is very positive.

The engines of the future could be the GDI-engines, because the do not spend too much petrol and it does not cost so much money to produce the engines, because the components are not that expensive.

The Mitsubishi expects that from the year of 2005 the factories only will produce the GDI-engines.

In November in Denmark, it is possible to test-drive the new Mitsubishi Catisma, which has a GDI-engine. The price has not been stated clearly, but people think that the new Mitsubishi Carisma with the 1.8 litres engine it will cost about 5000-6000 more than the ordinary car.

There is one drawback, which is about the sulphur. In the Denmark the contents of sulphur is five times more than in Japan, and that can destroy the special catalyst, which need to get rit of the nitrogen oxide in the exhaust, and there will be a lot of that in the GDI-engine. The people from Mitsubishi claim that they have solved the problem.

We have made some calculations about the Mitsubishi Carisma 1.6 L and 1.8 L GDI:

From an article from Jyllandsposten (a Danish paper) we get these information’s:

The official number of consumption is 12,6 km/l in the conventional engine and 15,38 km/l in the GDI-engine. Some of the people from Jyllandsposten, who test-drove the car, drove 14,5 km/l. They drove very savagely, accelerated at every traficlights and the air-conditioning plant was turned on the whole time. The number of consumption is a very good number in relation to the number in the conventional engine.

The increase in per cent of number of consumption:

The numbers from Mitsubishis information’s:

100 (15,38/12,6) - 100 = 22%

The numbers from the driving:

100 (14,5/15,38) - 100 = 15%

Conclusion:

The conclusion of all the information’s is that the Elsbett-engine and the engine which drives on coco oil are the best engines in compare to the other. They do not pollute and they can work in a conventional car. The Elsbett-engine is also able to step up a production of rape, which will employ some people, who want to work

The Car of the Future presented by

Flemming Busch. Merkurvænget 65, 6710 Esbjerg V.

Mette Poulsen. Ravnsbjergparken 17, 6710 Esbjerg V.

Thomas Olsen. Højvangs Tværvej 9, 6715 Esbjerg N.

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