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The Future Propulsion of Cars Steve Plummer

A turn of the key, a slight sputter, and then a ROAR as air is sucked into the intake, mixed with fuel and ignited by a small spark in the cylinder. A dab with the right toe leads to a thrashing of metal and the escape of exhaust fumes booming out a satisfying rumble. This is the modern motorcar as we know it, all the drama, all the emotion and for any red blooded, rough tough bloke a very primal connection between man and machine. However with the world’s oil supply drying up and fears of global warming, is their room in the world for the internal combustion engine and it’s diet of gasoline? More importantly will we still feel the connection with our machine if it goes from the classic internal combustion engine to thousands of electrons travelling along coils of wire through a magnetic field. The discussion below will follow the future of engines within the average motor car and ask the question will man still be able to connect with his machine if it isn’t a rumbling V8 guzzling litres of fossil fuel.

Fossil Fuel Engines

The first engines to be used by mankind were run on fossil fuels. (I will not cover steam powered engines as their life in the motor car was very brief). This was either a Diesel engine which was developed by Nokolaus Otto in the 1870’s. Or it was the Internal Combustion Engine running on petrol made famous by Henry ford running it in production cars from 1908. This will be our starting point for the “modern conventional engine”.

The model T ford consisted of a 2.9L, 4-cylinder motor that produced 20 Break Horse Power. It was rear wheel drive and had 2 gears, high and low. By modern standards it is very hard to compare. Your average car today would be a 2.0L 4-cylinder motor, with a minimum of 100bhp and 4-6gears as either manual or automatic. This is definitely progress and many see there is a lot of life left in the standard combustion engine. By technology standards, the modern car engine is still very young. The current trend of motors is that they become smaller, more efficient, more powerful and cleaner. We have seen the diesel revolution over the past decade with huge gains being made in Europe. With common rail injection, biodiesel (essentially oil left over from deep fryers as a fuel source) and with smarter more refined turbochargers diesels are now a cleaner more efficient engine than any petrol engine. They have shaken off their old tag as being sluggish truck engines and are now clean, quiet and powerful. Their emissions are low from an environmental viewpoint and have a great future and all but spelled the end of the petrol engine.

Volkswagen launched its own counter revolution with the invention of it’s twin charger engine last year. Volkswagen put their hand up and said the petrol engine isn’t dead yet and won itself the “International Engine of the Year award” in 2006. They have created a 1.4L, 4-cyclinder engine which is both turbocharged and supercharged. Creating an engine that is as powerful as one twice it’s capacity, while maintaining the economy of a small engine. Volvo attempted a similar engine in the 1970’s, but failed to make it work. Now with the use of new technology a fresh breath of life has been blown back into the humble petrol engine.

Very few other pieces of technology compare to the passion of motor car enthusiasts. On an emotional level, the connection between man and machine is rarely as tight. In Australia we have the Ford vs. Holden divide; in Europe we have the Italian artisan’s vs. the efficient Germans. Across the Pacific there is a constant battle between the Japanese and the Americans for who makes the greater car. There are 10’s of thousands of Car Clubs worldwide and on a weekend it is not too common to see someone tinkering in their garage trying to bring a classic back to life. So there is a lot of love and connection with the fossil fuel engine of today.

Hybrid Engines

In recent years this has become the biggest hype in the world of motoring, the hybrid car, half electric half petrol. The idea is that the car runs as an electric car, and uses the petrol engine if it needs added acceleration, or is under strain, or runs out of electrical charge. These cars are self sufficient and so do not need to be plugged into the wall at night to be charged, they gain their charge by using generators with the car is travelling downhill or when it is braking. When the car becomes stationary the petrol engine turns off and the electric is always at the ready. So for sitting in peak hour traffic, the petrol engine takes a rest and the electric does the work, so no emissions and no noise. No emissions are great, but when it comes to an emotional connection between man and machine the noise is a large part. The rumble of engine, the vibrations through your seat all go out the window when the electric motor kicks in. It has been reported in the UK reporter that hybrid cars are playing engine noise soundtracks with speakers under the hood. For a few reasons, mainly it is for safety, pedestrians can’t hear an electric engine coming. The other reason seen is that emotional connection, without the throbbing engine at the heart of the car it seems more like a golf buggy and not a proper petrol powered motorcar. We are seeing with the advancement in technology that we are being drawn more emotionally away from the original cars and are trying to find a replacement for that lost feeling.

Pure Electric Engines

The final stage in the evolution of a propulsion system for our cars is the electric engine. Enormous Lithium-Ion batteries placed deep within the cars makeup running electric motors. Either in wheel motors or one large motor as per a traditional motorcar. This is the final step to detach ourselves from the fossil fuel burning ways of the past. These cars are powered by plugging them into the wall like any other appliance to charge them up. And providing that power is created cleanly, Wind, Hydro, Solar it is a total green option. The first drawback with these cars is the range, for now it is between 150-200km and then it’s out of juice and you have to plug it in again. This effectively limits your radius of travel to 100km from your point of charge. Which is fine for city driving, but the long haul between cities just won’t work.

The electric car is definitely a viable option for the future, providing we have green production of energy. However the emotional connection takes another hit to the gut. The Lightning Car Company, Britain’s first electric sports car company creates roadsters. Which in many senses is the purest form of driving, an open top, rear wheel drive, low slung, a real drivers car in many respects. On the standard equipment list is one item, “Programmable external engine sound generator”. They include as standard a piece of equipment that makes it sound like a real car. With the hybrid car it was an aftermarket part which people could add on since the original designers didn’t think it necessary. And now with our final step in the evolution the engineers have seen it as paramount to the cars success that it sounds like a classic petrol propelled car. Coupled with this is gone will be the day where anyone can go out and tinker with their car, because you’ll need to be a qualified electrician to fix anything.

Conclusion It is clear that over the evolution of the motor car the emotional connection is becoming more and more distant. It has distanced itself to the point whereby the engineer saw it paramount to mount a programmable external engine sound generator to make it sound like a car so people would still drive it! Technology is a great thing; it has improved efficiency, power, cleanliness and will provide us with a future without oil. But will it feel the same in 50 years, when you slide yourself into your car, click the seatbelt on, reach down and hit the starter button, only to have a few lights turn on the dashboard, hearing a small hum as the batteries heat up and the whirring of an electric motor your only soundtrack as you hurtle towards the horizon?

Bibliography How Stuff Works – Engine http://www.howstuffworks.com/engine.htm

Wikipedia – Internal Combustion Engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine

The First Car by William Bottorff http://www.ausbcomp.com/~bbott/cars/carhist.htm

Lightning Car Company http://www.lightningcarcompany.com/