This must be the best kept secret in automotive technology, an engine that gets 30% better mpg

using only 5% ethanol and costs about $1,000 extra to build (mass produced). In other words mileage comparable to that of a hybrid at about one fourth the cost.

What amazes me is how little this engine is talked about. I just saw a Nova program on advanced automotive technologies. They touched on ethanol but they never mentioned this engine. The performance and cost figures beats anything I have found.

It was designed by three MIT scientists.

"MIT researchers have developed a half-sized engine that performs like a full-sized engine but offers the fuel efficiency of a hybrid electric car. The team includes, Leslie Bromberg, principal research engineer at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), Daniel Cohn, division head and senior research scientist at the PSFC, and John Heywood, director of the Sloan Automotive Lab and professor of mechanical engineering."

...not your average motor-heads!


http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/engine.html

These small engines could be on the market within five years, and consumers should find them appealing: By spending about an extra $1,000 and adding a couple of gallons of ethanol every few months, they will have an engine that can go as much as 30 percent farther on a gallon of fuel than an ordinary engine. Moreover, the little engine provides high performance without the use of high-octane gasoline.

Given the short fuel-savings payback time--three to four years at present U.S. gasoline prices--the researchers believe that their "ethanol-boosted" turbo engine has real potential for widespread adoption. The impact on U.S. oil consumption could be substantial. For example, if all of today's cars had the new engine, current U.S. gasoline consumption of 140 billion gallons per year would drop by more than 30 billion gallons.
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...in other words with a volume of ethanol equal to 5% of the total fuel supply you get a 21% reduction in gasoline consumption!



Ford checked out their ideas, made a prototype which confirmed what their computer models predicted, and has joined forces with them in forming a company called Ethanol Boosting Systems http://www.ethanolboost.com/

http://www.ethanolboost.com/Technology%20and%20applications.htm#_Using_Ethanol_To_1

With appropriate control, typical ethanol use can be limited to 5% or less of gasoline use in first generation EBS systems and 3% or less in advanced systems. With this small requirement, the ethanol tank refill could occur as infrequently as once every 4 to 6 months. If E85 pumps are not available, refill could be done at the dealer at the time of regular servicing. The refill could also be carried out at fleet refueling stations. As more E85 fueling stations become available, the driver will have increased opportunity for refill in a typical manner. An additional refueling option is for the driver or a service station attendant to replenish the octane boost fuel additive tank using containers of E85 or some other form of ethanol.

They see the oil production curves, they know we're at or near peak oil.

a better kept secret. Ready?

Buena Vista Sauvignon Blanc "Lake Country" (CA) 2003. It's white and dry and costs about $15.00 but it will kick you in the ass I promise.

Look around and try it you will thank me later.

it is a crime against humanity... you'll get a taste of it, so to speak, as the price hikes hit your supermarket like nothing you've seen yet, over the next few months.

YOU seem to be missing something. The Ethanol Direct Injection engine needs only 5% ethanol to gain the 30% boost in fuel efficiency. This is getting more for less (ethanol). We currently make ethanol in an amount that equals almost 10% of the fuel supply. With this engine we would not have to make any more.

You are also are operating under a misconception that making ethanol from corn drives up food prices. Actually, ALL the PROTEIN in the corn used to make ethanol is recovered and sold as high protein feed supplement for cattle and pigs. (did you know 80% of the corn raised in U.S. goes to feed for cattle and pigs?) So it's not legitimate to say ALL the corn is lost to the food chain. Farmers can replace the lost starch content with fodder that people cannot digest. So their is no extra demand for food-stuffs (if you want to call field corn, that's what is made into ethanol ..and fed to cattle, food stuffs, i.e. consumed by people)).

Many legitimate studies (e.g. by the CBO in 2008) of food prices have shown that the price of petroleum is a bigger factor in the price rises of food than the increased demand for corn to make ethanol. Ethanol actually brings down the price of gas/petroleum and thereby contributes to a lowering of the cost of food. (remember, only the starch content of the corn is lost to the food chain. Francisco Blanch, Chief Commodities Strategist for Merrill Lynch told the Wall Street Journal that ethanol keeps the price of gas lower by about 15%.

The thing is people around the world are improving their standards of living and buying more food and more expensive food..i.e. meat. There were massive fires in Russia over the last year, crop failures in the Ukraine and Australia also contributed to lower supply (mostly of wheat). During the time we have been increasing our production of ethanol our exports of corn have remained about the same.

..but by getting more miles per gallon with only 5% ethanol this engine reduces the amount of ethanol needed.

Now, oil prices will continue to go up as China and India demand more oil. If we do not do something relatively quickly to reduce our consumption of gasoline we will see price increases in gas that will put our economy into a recession or even a depression. And again: Francisco Blanch, Chief Commodities Strategist for Merrill Lynch told the Wall Street Journal that ethanol keeps the price of gas lower by about 15%.



see: http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2011-03-11-1Agas11_CV_N.htm">Americans Squeezed by Gas Prices - USA Today - Marsh 11, 2010

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2008-06-08-dream_N.htm">Economy squeezes the American Dream - USA Today 2008

Honest and true fact. Honest!

....IT's not likely that Ford Motor company would be interested in something that didn't have a good chance of working. But Ford built a prototype of the engine to test the MIT scientists computer modelling. The prototype proved the modelling was accurate. Then Ford was "in".


Note: from the OP:

.... the individuals who designed the engine(FYI: MIT stands for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, possibly THE premier institution of scientific and engineering research in the United States):


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MIT researchers have developed a half-sized engine that performs like a full-sized engine but offers the fuel efficiency of a hybrid electric car.

The team includes,

Leslie Bromberg, principal research engineer at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC),

Daniel Cohn, division head and senior research scientist at the PSFC, and

John Heywood, director of the Sloan Automotive Lab and professor of mechanical engineering."
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____ and see:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/10/startup_working.html">Startup Working to Commercialize Direct Injection Ethanol Boosting + Turbocharging


MIT scientists and engineers earlier this year founded a company—Ethanol Boosting Systems, LLC (EBS)—to commercialize their work on direct-injection ethanol boosting combined with aggressive turbocharging in a gasoline engine. (Earlier post.) The result is a gasoline engine with the fuel efficiency of current hybrids or turbodiesels—up to 30% better than a conventional gasoline engine—but at lower cost.



The ethanol-boosted engine could provide efficiency gains comparable to those of today’s hybrid engine systems for less extra investment: about $1,000 as opposed to $3,000 to $5,000. The engine should use less than five gallons of ethanol for every 100 gallons of gasoline, so drivers would need to fill their ethanol tank only every one to three months. The ethanol used could be E85.

Given the short fuel-savings payback time—three to four years at present US gasoline prices—the MIT researchers believe that their ethanol-boosted turbo engine has real potential for widespread adoption.
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___ and some more:

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/04/ford-e85di-gasolinepfi-20090426.html">Ford E85 Direct Injection Boosting Study: A Less Expensive Alternative to Diesel

Proposed by John Heywood and colleagues at MIT in 2005, the basic premise of E85 boosting is that ethanol (or other lower alcohols) suppresses knock due to the large evaporative cooling effect it has on the air-fuel mixture when injected directly into the cylinder, supplemented by ethanol’s inherent high octane number. Using the E85 boosting concept requires two fuel tanks and vehicle owner acceptance of dual fueling.

With knock suppressed, the compression ratio (CR) can be increased; in a turbocharged or supercharged engine, even higher boost pressure can be used. The resulting higher BMEP levels allow downsizing of the engine at equivalent vehicle performance. The MIT team spun off a startup—http://www.ethanolboost.com/">Ethanol Boosting Systems, LLC (EBS) —in 2006 to commercialize the concept. (Earlier post.) EBS has a collaborative R&D agreement with Ford, and participated in the study reported at the World Congress.
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Because of these factors, the E85 DI + gasoline PFI engine will cost significantly less than a diesel engine, and will be able to achieve more stringent emission standards due to the extremely high conversion efficiency of a stoichiometric TWC aftertreatment system. The E85 DI + gasoline PFI engine also uses a renewable fuel in a leveraged manner to significantly reduce petroleum consumption and total net CO2 emissions.
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....no offense to your (imaginary?) uncle but I'm willing to bet MIT's Bromberg, Cohn and Heywood know a little bit more about combustion engineering than he does. And I also suspect Ford would have found any flaws in their logic before getting involved in developing this engine.;-)

Havn't seen the full official specs on the F150's EcoBoost Engine but it certainly looks similar to what you are describing here.


Read more: http://www.motortrend.com/features/consumer/1010_2011_ford_f_150_ecoboost_testing_with_mike_rowe/index.html#ixzz1GJpH7OR6

and I don't see anything about ethanol injection.

boost in the combustion chamber due to it's higher octane than gasoline and it's heat of vaporization. It evaporates rapidly and thus cools the 'charge' in the combustion chamber. Heat generated by higher compression ratios is what leads to pre-ignition. By cooling the fuel-air charge ethanol enables higher compression boost and higher horsepower and torque output. This enables greater downsizing of the engine and bigger mileage improvements.

While 30% improvement is not as great as a plug-in hybrid it is comparable to the standard hybrid and the marginal cost would be about $1,000 to $1,500 as opposed to $4,000 for the typical hybrid and $20,000 for the Volt. Plus, this engine is scalable from small cars to tractor trailer trucks.

The idea is to get something on the road in numbers as quickly as possible to achieve a large aggregate impact on gasoline consumption in the least amount of time to avert the coming oil price induced death of economic growth. We do not have 20 years to begin to reduce gas consumption.

"These small engines could be on the market within five years".

Why aren't they? :shrug:

Ford has invested a huge amount of money and engineering effort to bring hybrids to the showroom.

think about it: a customer comes into a ford showroom. He sees two cars offering about 30% better gas mileage. One, the Hybrid, costs $4,000 to $5,000 more than the standard ICE car, the other, with the Ethanol Direct Injection Engine goes for $1,500 more. Evn if the hybrid got a 40% improvement in gas mileage (if Ford can match the Prius) I'll bet for the price difference MOST people would buy the cheaper car. (now maybe if you were one of the customers who could count on getting the tax credit it would be about an even stevn proposition. But there is not enough funding to give the tax credit to all buyers of hybrids)

Ford wants to recover that vast investment in hybrids. If they started selling this cheaper car with just about the same fuel efficiency they would be competing with themselves. They aren't going to do that. Notice that they are looking into making it for Diesel replacement.....no tractor trailer truck owners are likely to opt for a hybrid tractor trailer (none available anyway). So in the diesel application they are not competing with themselves.

I don't get the logic of sticking with a technology that's inferior. If they could produce a product that would blow their competition out of the water and be more profitable, they would drop their hybrid line in a heartbeat.

I suspect the tech turned out to be not so promising after all, but I'm mystified by this. I emailed the senior designer - will update if I get anything back. :shrug:

That shows the technology works. They are going to try to make money from it the truck application while not competing with themselves in cars. NOte that the Government offers tax credits to buyers of hybrids but as of this date there is nothing about such a deal for this ethanol injected DI engine.

The Government has a great interest in seeing the U.S. stay competitive in electric car technology. We do not want to cede this area to South Korea, Japan and China. I understand this but my question is, how will we survive the coming economic growth killing oil price rises of the next 5, 10 and 15 years? I must cite the example of the Maginot Line.

Good luck on getting an honest answer from anybody at Ford. You are not a 'team player' if you don't sing off the same sheet of music. A good way to kill a career is to go solo and 'bad-mouth' management decisions.

{I am in communication with people in automotive industry (not by email). I'll be surprised if you get a strait answer (at least visually you can 'read' a shrug.:shrug:)}

GM and ford have been building high compression (and super-charged) diesel engines for years. Ever heard of the 'Jimmy' Blower? Virtually all truck engines today in commercial applications are turbo-charged. In the ethanol boosted Direct Injection engine - Direct Injection allows them to shoot the ethanol charge right where the combustion will be initiated. This gets maximum effect from the high octane and vaporization rate (which cools the charge) of ethanol.

Ford probably figures they would not be able to sell enough (any?) of these cars in places in the country where E85 pumps are virtually impossible to find. Most are in the mid-west. I think there is only about 4,000 to 5,000 E85 pumps.

They won't sell many of these cars where it is hard or impossible to find an E85 pump...even if you only need to fill up with ethanol once every 3 or 4 months as the EBS people say.

of them to recover the investment in tooling plus a profit. That's not possible unless we have more ethanol and more widely available ethanol.

Electric cars are great but there won't be enough of them soon enough to keep gas prices from rising in the next 3 to 15 years.

Check my motor trend link above. Looks to me like the 3.5L Ecoboost is exactly what is being talked about.

I see this as a stopgap, at best.

Ford Escape PHEV prototypes have been hitting 90-120 MPH averages in the testing power utilities have done.

If Ford delivers in 2012, it's going to kick the snot outta the "conventional hybrid" Ford Escape with a 200% to 300% improvement.

Colder weather cuts into battery performance and in hot weather if you like a/c that puts extra burden on the battery. And how you drive makes a big difference, too.


Now the Volt, as said, has been predicted to get on average about 100 mpg, at a cost of $40,000 or about $20,000 more than a car of comparable weight & payload.


The question that has to be considered here is - how rapidly can these cars be adopted by a significant portion of the population? Will the electrics be adopted in large enough numbers to avert the oil price rises coming in the next few years? ....not too likely.

Looking at a longer time frame, a car getting 100 mpg would achieve a 67% reduction of gas consumption over a car averaging 33 mpg (which cars of similar payload to the Volt can achieve). Forecasts have been made for PHEVs using very aggressive sales forecasts for plug-ins yielding figures of about 20% of the fleet being PHEVs in 20 years. Now, if PHEVs are 20% of the fleet and they individually achieve a 67% reduction in gas consumption, then the aggregate impact from PHEVs would be a total gas consumption reduction of 13.4%... and that's in 20 years ...with a very aggressive sales forecast.

Two recent studies (Bloomberg New Energy and J.D. Powers) using more modest numbers for Plug-in sales forecast a percentage of the fleet for Electrics of about 7.5% in twenty years. If PHEVs were 7.5% of the fleet the total gasoline consumption reduction for PHEVS would be......5%.

If we don't do something to avert or minimize the increase in oil prices the economic impacts will be such that sales of PHEVs and even hybrids will be significantly impacted. When you have poor economic growth, low job creation and high unemployment there aren't as many people willing, or able, to pay the extra money for higher priced cars.