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Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

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Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby kublikhan » Sun 14 Aug 2016, 23:41:02

Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Co has come up with a new type of gasoline engine it says may make some of today's advanced diesel engines obsolete. The new engine uses variable compression technology, which Nissan engineers say allows it at any given moment to choose an optimal compression ratio for combustion - a key factor in the trade-off between power and efficiency in all gasoline-fuelled engines. The technology gives the new engine the performance of turbo-charged gasoline engines while matching the power and fuel economy of today's diesel and hybrid powertrains - a level of performance and efficiency the conventional gasoline engine has so far struggled to achieve.

The potential breakthrough technology comes at a time when diesel engine technology has been tarnished by Volkswagen's emissions cheating scandal. We believe this new engine of ours is an ultimate gasoline engine that could over time replace the (advanced) diesel engine of today," Kinichi Tanuma, a senior Nissan engineer who leads product development for the premium Infiniti brand, told reporters at a pre-launch briefing last month. "Increasing the fuel efficiency of internal combustion engines is critical to automakers. Not all consumers will accept a battery electric vehicle solution."

The new Variable Compression-Turbo (VC-T) powertrain, expected to be officially unveiled at next month's Paris motor show, will initially be showcased in an Infiniti car to be unveiled next year. The turbo-charged, 2-liter, four-cylinder VC-T engine averages 27 percent better fuel economy than the 3.5-liter V6 engine it replaces, with comparable power and torque. Nissan says the new engine matches the diesel engine in torque – the amount of thrust that helps determine the car's acceleration. The engine is also cheaper than today's advanced turbo-charged diesel engines. They said it should also meet nitrogen oxide (NOx) and other emissions rules in certain markets without requiring costly treatment systems.
Nissan revolution: could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Infiniti will launch the world’s first production continuously variable compression ratio engine in 2018. The engine, a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline four called VC-T, will debut in the new QX50 crossover in 2018. Nissan engineers have reportedly been working on the engine concept for more than 20 years. Engineers say the system allows the compression ratio of the Infiniti VC-T engine to be seamlessly and continuously varied between 8:1 and 14:1. The engine will adopt a lower compression ratio under hard acceleration or heavy loads to allow the turbocharger to deliver maximum boost, and move to a higher compression ratio on light throttle to allow for fuel-efficient lean-burn running. The engine, which uses both port and direct injection, will switch between Atkinson and regular combustion cycles without interruption.

Infiniti claims the 2.0-liter VC-T engine will deliver more than the 265 hp and 248 lb-ft of torque developed by the 3.5-liter V-6 currently available in the QX60 crossover, with a 27 percent boost in fuel efficiency. Variable compression ratio engines have existing in engineering labs for decades, but Infiniti will be the first to have a production version with a continuously variable compression ratio. The VC-T engine will be used in other Infiniti models, and also in future Nissans.

Allowing its premium Infiniti brand to debut the engine suggests Nissan is preparing to bet big on variable compression ratio technology, especially in Europe. Engineers say the engine is cheaper to build than a Euro 6 compliant diesel, and it won’t be subject to the growing backlash against diesels in Europe because of increased concerns over particulate emissions.
Game Changer: Infiniti’s VC-T Variable Compression Engine

So you get the power and efficiency of diesel but without the added cost and emissions? Sounds like a sweet deal.
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Mon 15 Aug 2016, 04:49:54

Diesel, more or less any oil will do as source, petrol, fossil monopoly.
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby kublikhan » Mon 15 Aug 2016, 06:04:32

Petrols can be converted to run on ethanol. But ultimately petrol and diesel engines are both trapped by the fossil monopoly. There is not enough fryer grease in the world to run our diesel engines on nor enough ethanol to run petrol engines on.
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Mon 15 Aug 2016, 07:23:31

Sure. The way I see it eventually playing out isn't fleet conversion, but fleet reduction. As a truck driver myself in a major port city, I see every day how slow uptake of state of the art technology in logistics is, even in new purpose built JIT facilities.

An average large truck engine is worth upwards of $25,000 US, retrofitting I would guess at least $10,000. So maybe for $30+k you can replace with one of these 20/25% more efficient engines. First question anyone in trucking will ask/ What is the lifespan & maintenance schedule? Given modern diesels usually go to between half & 1 million km without any major maintenance, any competitor has to be able to match or better that or it won't be taken seriously.

Even if these things turn out to be the ducks nuts it will take a decade for Nissan to establish their reputation. By which time peak oil, well, most likely clearly in the rear view by then.

I like the idea of dodgem car/ electric tramway type charge as you go systems, which could work well in urban areas, electrify the fleet, minimise battery requirement, drive it all off nuke backed renewables.
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 15 Aug 2016, 08:03:52

Careful there Sea, your getting close to some other " out of this world" solutions.

At best these weed red ruin schemes, not solution. Hopium.
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Mon 15 Aug 2016, 09:32:44

Whatever Newfie, I don't worry about it any more. My affinity is with the natural world, my destiny binds me to a machine world I understand & know how to manipulate, but I care not for. I'm a Kuntsler/ Orlov guy, not a techtopian.
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby Tanada » Mon 15 Aug 2016, 09:54:58

This new engine, even if it works as advertised is going to be more complicated than a simple diesel engine. Even the most modern diesels with properly working emissions controls and all the other hullabaloo are fundamentally a simple compression ignition engine that can be stripped of all that extra stuff and still work burning a very wide range of liquid fuels. This new engine will have to demonstrate not only a working model, it will need to be close enough in price to the extremely reliable diesel engines now in use to justify switching over. How much of a price differential between gasoline and diesel fuel would that take? What would be the cause of a large enough differential that would not also slow the economy and make purchasing millions of new diesel engines problematic for all the machinery now using diesel?
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 15 Aug 2016, 16:19:57

We are running a 30+year old 13 hp Volvo 2 cylinder. It has one complete rebuild in it about 700 hours ago. Dead simple, needs NO electricity. It has a starter but will work on a hand crank. Solar flare, EMP? No worries, 100% mechanical.

Now the Yanmar on our big boat does require electricity and can't be hand started. But that's much larger and only 10 years old.
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby sparky » Mon 15 Aug 2016, 17:59:19

.
The Diesel engine is inherently more efficient
that's due to it having a higher compression ratio .
It follows from the Carnot Cycle describing the theory of ALL thermal engines ( including fridges )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle
if the same amount of gadgetry was applied to Diesel , it would boost its efficiency even further
....at a cost in reliability and manufacturing .
the largest engine is a diesel , the smallest diesel is less than 1cm3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck4nID61rso
a good diesel work with peanut oil , refinery slop and even in multi-fuel engine with gasoline
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Mon 15 Aug 2016, 19:08:44

Petrol engines have about half the lifespan of diesels, ethanol less again. When you are talking tens of thousands $$$ for an engine, longevity is just as important as fuel use.
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby dissident » Mon 15 Aug 2016, 21:22:23

These announcements are a joke. Talk of the latest variable compression gasoline engine appears every few years and then fades into oblivion. Wake me up when they have one for sale.
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby StarvingLion » Tue 16 Aug 2016, 00:03:44

Headline Just as dumb as

'Could new Wind Turbines make Coal Plants obsolete?'

or

'Could the Bronze Age make the Fossil Age obsolete?'
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby ralfy » Wed 17 Aug 2016, 22:53:26

Definitely a "sweet deal," as that can lead to more car sales, which means more profits, and in turn more capital to make, sell, and drive even more cars. Investors of such technology will certainly want that too happen. Too bad such a process will ironically involve more oil consumption.
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby dolanbaker » Thu 18 Aug 2016, 16:49:39

StarvingLion wrote:Headline Just as dumb as

'Could new Wind Turbines make Coal Plants obsolete?'

or

'Could the Bronze Age make the Fossil Age obsolete?'

The headline would have been better if it was something like
"New Engine could enable motorists to replace Diesel with Petrol as the fuel of choice".
Plus the added bonus of leaving more Diesel available for all the heavy plant use.
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby kublikhan » Thu 18 Aug 2016, 17:48:33

dolanbaker wrote:The headline would have been better if it was something like
"New Engine could enable motorists to replace Diesel with Petrol as the fuel of choice".
Plus the added bonus of leaving more Diesel available for all the heavy plant use.
I agree. I just grabbed the headline of the first article I linked to. If I posted it again I would write something simpler like: "New engine 27% more efficient" Nissan appears to be targeting the car market so I doubt this will have any effect on the heavy diesel engines used in trucking. Perhaps in the long term some of the enhancements can be brought over to diesel engines. But these pistons are more complex and more complexity means more things that can fail. Best to see how well they perform first.
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Thu 18 Aug 2016, 18:07:26

Here's more information on the Nissan VC-T: http://spectator.org/rearden-steel-in-real-life/

...complete with an off-the-cuff reference to Atlas Shrugged.
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby KaiserJeep » Thu 18 Aug 2016, 21:58:29

Here's a semi-technical article complete with a diagram explaining the VC-T technology:
http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/08/inifiniti-will-debut-a-variable-compression-ratio-engine-in-september/

It would appear that the distance between the cylinder head and the crankshaft is being changed, resulting in a different compression ratio.

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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby sparky » Fri 19 Aug 2016, 05:11:19

.
variable compression technology is an interesting development .
it certainly can be used on diesel too ,
at best it could adjust efficiency for a variety of running condition AND fuel
the trouble with gasoline engines is that they require the cream of refineries cuts ,octane !
while diesel can do with a much broader range of hydrocarbons
as I posted above the compression ratio is a fundamental factor in thermal engine efficiency

is it practical ? time will tell .
I for one are basically skeptical until proven wrong ,
I would rather loose an argument and gain a new advantage
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Re: Could new petrol engine make diesel obsolete?

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Fri 22 Jun 2018, 13:47:45

I thought this was a decent Youtube video dicussing this idea by an independent auto mechanic who has a LOT of videos on Youtube re how-to's and advice on car mechanical issues.

Bottom line, all those extra moving parts are more chance for something to break. How much gasoline gets saved vs. how much sooner the engine must be rebuilt?

https://www.google.com/search?q=scotty+ ... e&ie=UTF-8

I'll let someone else be the guinea pigs for these until they're well proven.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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