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Looking Beyond Detroit For Engine Innovation
waderoush writes "Opposed-piston engines (with two pistons in the same cylinder) have been around since the 1920s, but have been used mainly in submarines and airplanes. Now, several startups are working to make these high-efficiency engines practical for cars, trucks, and light vehicles — but they're under no illusions that Detroit will adopt the idea. Silicon Valley startup Pinnacle Engines, which is backed by the world's largest venture fund, is looking to a scooter manufacturer in India as its first partner. 'This ought to be music to Detroit's ears, but to them I'm just some whacko in California,' says Monty Cleeves, Pinnacle's founder and CTO. 'This is Silicon Valley, and what does Silicon Valley know about making engines? Folks in Asia have almost zero "not-invented-here" issues, whereas it's pretty prevalent all over the U.S.'"
Detroit will be interested in it, if it works better.
Hint: Detroit has worked on this idea before, and didn't get it to work.
I'm not saying it can't work, only that it's been tried. Maybe this guy can actually scale up to a practice car with this that's reasonably more efficient.
At that point, Detroit will be interested.
However, the auto industry is full of things that worked on small scale, but turned out to be impracticable, or not marketable.
In the US, a culture is built around items, and that culture build upon itself.
In Asia, they are happy to take anyones ideas, and sell them illegally.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No, boxer engines are opposed pistons, but they use separate cylinders. Boxer engines are a form of a 'Flat' engine.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
This the same Detroit that cried like babies over federal fuel efficiency requirements? Didn't they say that 30mpg was impossible and would put them out of business, despite foreign car makers doing it for years?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
So we’d have to retool 320 machines. Is your change that good?
Perfect illustration of why we're resistant to change. And then some new company comes up with that change embedded in their process, and trounce the old one. Then the cycle repeats.
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
Sometimes a radical idea takes a lot of time to percolate in the minds of those who hear it, or even hear of it, before it starts to make sense to them. It's fine to go seeking more open minds to get the concept ironed out and start making money, but maybe he should also drop the scorned prophet act while he does it. Come back with his billion dollars and his 3 million Indian customers as the best damn proof of concept he could possibly have and negotiate with Detroit from a position of strength rather than badmouth the very people he wishes would do business with him.
Also, take a look at Mr. Cleeves Linkedin profile. His industry appears to be Semiconductors and his summary says "Leadership roles in technology development".
Nothing about engineering or materials or chemistry or any other field I'd imagine central to massively repurposing a large engine. But hey, a semiconductors guy with specialty in "Process management" should have doors flying open for him in Detroit.
I can't imagine a guy with that skill set could have an easy time convincing a heavy industry to listen to him, no matter what his idea. It doesn't mean the industry is a closed-minded bunch of trolls, as he seems to think; it just means that he's got no reputation and no credentials, just like the other thousand outsiders who try to send them ideas or schedule pitch meetings every year.
BS. The car engine of today frequently outlasts the car. Usually the transmission or something else goes before the engine does.
Are you seriously bringing up Subaru, when the US out made engines like Cadillac's North Start and similar engines, where you had to pull half the engine out to replace the freaking starter? Or my Jeep, where you have to unhook the exhaust headers? Getting at the plugs? Seriously--I've got 2 domestic vehicles, and the Jeep you've got to unhook the freaking washer fluid reservoir to get to one of them.
And maintenance isn't easy--see what happens sometime when something involving the mandatory emissions monitoring/computer goes. You've almost always have to take it in, due to the reprogramming, to the dealer, and federal law only mandates warranty to around 80,000 miles. After that, it's likely a minimum $300 shop visit after they diagnose it. Easy my ass.
You're essentially are the story's point. While maybe not NIH, you're very resistant to obvious improvements. Meanwhile, the same people hanging on to the old are the ones complaining most about energy independence, desiring more drilling, more phracking, all to maintain their belching, inefficient gas or diesel engines. Live next to a major road sometime--you'll appreciate the meaning of "exhaust." Some studies even attribute a large portion of health care costs of males between 35 and 60 due to being around bad but legally allowable emissions (i.e. diesel increases stroke and heart attack risks).
This is all just one of the reasons why "Detroit" suddenly became very willing to up the standards on emissions and crash tests. It wasn't to improve their vehicles or to up safety, but as a political move to prevent newcomers and newer tech from entering the marketplace, by raising the barrier to entry. They don't care as long as their business continues. Nothing national or better or more efficient about it.
25 to 50 percent less gas in a scooter isn't really that impressive. Most decent scooters are at the point of diminishing returns, the increased cost of maintenance is almost certainly going to be more than the savings on fuel. It's relatively trivial to get a scooter to get 60-70mpg, an extra 25% to 50% isn't that significant, unless that extra mileage comes maintenance free.
Didn't they say that 30mpg was impossible and would put them out of business, despite foreign car makers doing it for years?
No they didn't say that. Nor have the foreign car makers been "doing it for years". If you make a big heavy vehicle it is going to get crappy fuel efficiency. US consumers, for better or worse, love big heavy cars. All automakers know how to make more fuel efficient cars but those are not the ones most people buy. Designing more fuel efficient cars without regressing on other features customers demonstrably want is seriously difficult and possibly without much prospect of payback for the engineering cost. Relatively few people buy a car with fuel efficiency as their primary concern. That might change if gasoline were suddenly $7/gallon but that simply is not going to happen.
The reason the automakers fought against increasing CAFE standards was simply cost. The government is imposing an engineering cost on their business without any certainty of additional revenue from their customers to offset the cost. Furthermore when your most profitable vehicles are the least fuel efficient (true for every auto manufacturer) and best selling, that is a major problem.
Toyota and other foreign car manufacturers were just as against raising CAFE standards as the US auto makers. The Toyota Tundra simply cannot achieve 30mpg without some combination of horsepower reduction, weight reduction, better aerodynamics and possibly hybridization. That's physics and has nothing to do with being a foreign or domestic car maker. The engineering challenges are just as difficult for Toyota as they are for GM. I've worked with both companies directly and I promise you Toyota does not have better engineers.