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Mazda Announces Breakthrough In Long-Coveted Engine Technology (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Mazda Motor Corp said it would become the world's first automaker to commercialize a much more efficient petrol engine using technology that deep-pocketed rivals have been trying to engineer for decades, a twist in an industry increasingly going electric. The new compression ignition engine is 20 percent to 30 percent more fuel efficient than the Japanese automaker's current engines and uses a technology that has eluded the likes of Daimler AG and General Motors Co. Mazda, with a research and development (R&D) budget a fraction of those of major peers, said it plans to sell cars with the new engine from 2019. A homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine ignites petrol through compression, eliminating spark plugs. Its fuel economy potentially matches that of a diesel engine without high emissions of nitrogen oxides or sooty particulates. Mazda's engine employs spark plugs under certain conditions, such as at low temperatures, to overcome technical hurdles that have hampered commercialization of the technology.
Electric cars are just more convenient. Once their range is close enough to gas no one will want to buy a new fossil fuel car. A few years after that gas stations will start disappearing. Once the stations and infrastructure start to die out the end of gasoline cars will be fairly quick. The one area where the internal combustion engine has a huge advantage is winter driving. Heating a car with an electric battery kills your distance and there aren't many good solutions. Insulation only gets you so far because you also have to dry the air in the car out or else the moisture will condense on the windows (try driving a car on a -20C morning with 3 kids in the back)
The never-ending single page is the worst trend in webdesign today, or perhaps ever. I was trying to reach the footer of some website the other day to get to info like "about", "contact us", or whatever, and it was absolutely impossible.
The issue is that the NOx pollution from the Diesels is due to its thermal efficiency. In a properly running diesel, the flame in the cylinder is so hot that it causes the N2 from the atmosphere to momentarily disassociate, which in turn combines with the left over oxygen, producing oxides of nitrogen. By definition, diesels run extremely lean, so there's plenty of oxygen for this to happen, and 80% of the charge is nitrogen. Anyhow, the net result is that diesels tend to produce the most NOx at the most efficient point, which is right around their torque curve.
Gasoline engines, on the other hand, ideally operate at the stochiometric ratio; the oxygen in the charge air is completely consumed by the combustion. It sounds like Mazda has achieved diesel-like efficiency while maintaining the gasoline ratios, meaning that there is no left over oxygen to produce NOx. It'll be interesting to see if it works out and is reliable.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...