Hagen Brothers farms,Goodrich ND | HuskerJ - 1/11/2019 09:25
Where it might work, would be in a hybrid vehicle. It would have to be one that ran on electric motors, and when the batteries charge came down to a certain level, the engine would start up, and run a generator. The engine would run at the speed/load that is most efficient, and would extend the range of electric vehicles to the point people in rural areas wouldn't have to worry about recharging.
Of course, once you start talking about an engine that only has to run at its most efficient RPM and load, that opens up the doors for turbine style engines (which can actually be as efficient or even more so than piston engines, if they can be run at optimum RPM and load). The advantage of a turbine, is you could burn gas, alcohol, diesel, propane, or whatever is cheapest per BTU and easiest to get. In fact, there are turbine engines that can burn anything from gasoline, diesel (or fuel oil), or ethanol, or any blend of them, with no modifications between fuels, just fill the tank with whatever you have.
Read up on Atkinson cycle gasoline engines, most hybrids today use them but nothing else does. Why only in a hybrid, because an Atkinson cycle gas engine has very little power at wide open throttle, so would make for a dangerously slow car for passing, merging etc. But combine an Atkinson gas engine( the latest Toyota Atkinson cycle engines are near 40% efficient, equal or better than diesel, and when you combine them with a storage battery and big electric motor to take care of the need for speed, plus the gas engine shut off when it is least efficient and regenerative braking system of a hybrid, the gen 4 Prius easily makes 50-60 mpg on gasoline.
Edited by Jon Hagen 1/12/2019 01:35
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Electric vehicles
