While others pursue exotic technology, VW focuses on green combustion engines. Jesse Crosse reports.
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From time to time manufacturers drop the usually impenetrable wall of product security and invite journalists along to ‘touchy feely’ events showing off future technologies. We don’t get to see next year’s models of course, but we are usually given a pretty revealing insight into what a particular manufacturer’s priorities are.
VW ran just such an event at Wolfsburg in June. It covered a wide range of technologies and product, from a new type of kiddies’ car seat to a high temperature fuel cell which, it claims, is better than the low temperature type the rest of the world has been spending billions of dollars developing.
In fact, a major thread running through the event was, unsurprisingly, CO2 emissions and like most, VW has plenty of projects on the go aimed at bringing them down. During the turn of the Century euphoria over the fuel cell, there were some predictions of serious deployment by 2005. Reality has long since gained a grip and VW head of research, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Leopold voiced the opinion of many by predicting “fuel cells will not be widely available before 2020 and the problem lies mainly in providing a hydrogen infrastructure.”
This, we probably knew, but interestingly, Leopold also voiced concerns over the true value of the hybrid on the grounds of cost. Well, thank goodness for that. Somebody had to say it. Though it seemed like a good idea at the time, there is an argument that these fiendishly expensive devices are showing signs of running out of commercial options. Not surprising when you consider just how clever IC engine specialists have proved themselves to be in improving the breed of both petrol and diesel engines beyond anything most of us could have imagined.
Does this mean the hybrid has been trumped by Messrs Otto and Diesel reaching from beyond the grave to give their creations a new lease of life? It looks that way. VW is working on a concept for combining both into one ‘super engine.’ The new engine will combine just about every energy-saving concept known to the engineering world and will cross over the boundaries between gasoline and diesel by using both spark and compression ignition.
VW is currently using two separate engines to do this and ultimately will have to combine the technology with the strategy of downsized, boosted engines which it has already adopted. This last step could be difficult but if it succeeds, VW will have created an engine that combines virtually every known, significant benefit available to both diesel and gasoline engines in one package.
There is a catch, however. To be fully optimised, the engines require better fuel than the sulphur-soaked dross available at the moment. The plan is to develop the natural gas-derived synthetic fuel which VW calls SynFuel, followed by SunFuel, the second generation biofuel processed from cellulose biomass such as wood and straw.
It’s impressive stuff. So far the only gasoline compression ignition engine to run has been a single cylinder laboratory job. VW’s amazing effort is based on a 1.6FSI production engine and it works too. But lets not allow our hearts to run away with our heads here. This apparent leap towards bio-fuelled Nirvana are indeed worthy, but are we not in danger of falling into the same trap as we did with the fuel cell?
Maybe not. In fairness, distributing a new type of liquid fuel would be simple. But in the long term, can second generation biofuel be made in the quantities required using renewable sources? Consider this. One third of the oil consumed in the UK goes to road transport. Research suggests replacing it with hydrogen produced using renewable electricity would require a wind farm the size of Wales or 100 nuclear power stations. Just imagine, then, the acreage of farmland that would need to be surrendered to energy crops in order to run all of Britain’s road transport on biofuel. It’s food for thought.
Jesse Crosse
