The future of engines

What about just utilizing our current infrastructure (electric grid & water supply) to perform electrolysis at our current gas stations.

Basically, we’d have point of delivery fuel production operations…wouldn’t that work well?

The current crop turbo 4's are pretty good, better than V6's from just a few years ago.  From just that standpoint it no longer makes much sense to keep producing the 6's.  They're cheaper to produce, make good power and torque, and get much better mpg.  And that's not even addressing the emissions mentioned by many above.  We're definitely in a state of change in the auto industry.  

Did you know the base 2018 E-Class Mercedes, the E300, is powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline 4?  I drove one recently, and while the power delivery was decent, the NVH was not worthy of a $60,000 car.  There's your reason to keep manufacturing the sixes.

EPA combined is 25 mpg with premium gasoline, so not impressive.

Dead dinosaurs?  Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

1988RedT2 said:

Did you know the base 2018 E-Class Mercedes, the E300, is powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline 4?  I drove one recently, and while the power delivery was decent, the NVH was not worthy of a $60,000 car.  There's your reason to keep manufacturing the sixes.

EPA combined is 25 mpg with premium gasoline, so not impressive.

Dead dinosaurs?  Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

I read somewhere that Benz is ditching V6s for inline-6s in the next generation anyhow.

I kind of feel that the MPG of the turbo 4s are a little over rated. Might be somewhat apples to oranges, but my 2000 VR6 GTI isnt that much worse MPG wise than my 2017 2.0T GTI. The new one has more power, tourqe, the motor is probably lighter, and better in almost every way.  But the quicker you cruise on the highway, the MPG really seems to drop faster for the 2.0T than the VR6, as if some window of efficiency is smaller. Maybe I was just expecting more after 17 years.

irish44j said:

I read somewhere that Benz is ditching V6s for inline-6s in the next generation anyhow.

I wish they never went away from the straight 6 in the first place.  MB and BWM both make a heck of a good straight 6

My impression of modern (DI) turbo 4's vs V6's and turbo 6's vs V8's is that they mostly produce a more diesel like power delivery, in mostly a good way for drivers, while being cheaper to produce and package for manufacturers.  However, their widely advertised fuel economy advantage in the EPA test cycle frequently doesn't seem hold up in the real world.

Which also mirrors experience with auto vs manual transmission fuel economy too., where modern autos have a widely advertised fuel economy advantage in the EPA test cycle that similarly doesn't seem to hold up in the real world.

Coincidence?...I think not.

The EPA test cycle is a bit weird, and it does tend to penalize manuals badly.  IIRC, it requires upshifts at certain prescribed road speeds regardless of gearing, etc. in the car.  That's why GM did the 1-4 skip shift thing.  It forced the testers to drive the car more efficiently. 

I don't believe that is the case.  Its just a time vs. speed plot you have to meet.  You can do it however a normal person driving your car would do it.  A normal person would not skip 1 to 4 unless you forced them to do so.

Alfa could probably shed some light on this.

ProDarwin said:

I don't believe that is the case.  Its just a time vs. speed plot you have to meet.  You can do it however a normal person driving your car would do it.  A normal person would not skip 1 to 4 unless you forced them to do so.

Alfa could probably shed some light on this.

WRT manuals, rslikfin is 100% correct. All manuals, regardless of any gearing, have the same shift schedule. 

There is one way to define your own- go out and do a specific customer test. But I’m not aware of anyone actually doing that. The GM skip E36 M3 is a legal way around it. 

Manuals also get hurt by specific top gear performance test. So they are stuck with higher FDR than autos. Kinda dumb if you ask me. 

Interesting.  I didn't know that.  Back in college when we were simulating the 2 (at the time) drive cycles, we had rpm driven shift point, but it was kept pretty low.

Edit:  was going to ask where, but I found them here  https://www.epa.gov/vehicle-and-fuel-emissions-testing/dynamometer-drive-schedules

I swear I have never seen them posted there before.  Are there separate schedule for a 6 speed?

In reply to ProDarwin :

Yea, and one for 4 speed, too. 

Odd, but other than a shift light and a shift survey, there not much else to define when a manual should shift. 

RX Reven' said:

What about just utilizing our current infrastructure (electric grid & water supply) to perform electrolysis at our current gas stations.

Basically, we’d have point of delivery fuel production operations…wouldn’t that work well?

It would solve the infrastructure problems, greatly reduce the safety problems, and make way for solving the environmental problems, but it would make the price problem even worse. The expensive hydrogen you can buy today is mostly a relatively cheap byproduct of fossil fuel extraction. It's hardly being made by electrolysis right now.

I guess they could target a specific engine load (as a percentage of manifold pressure from idle vs WOT) and an acceleration rate and say "shift at whatever points keep you on the curve", but that would be harder to implement.  

There are a lot of great V8s on the market right now. I hate to think that we're seeing the sunset of an era, and the V8 engine will shortly be a thing of the past.

 What about just utilizing our current infrastructure (electric grid & water supply) to perform electrolysis at our current gas stations.

One wonders how much fresh water has to be shipped onto the Navy's nuclear vessels so that the seamen don't die of thirst. The main problem with electrolysis in general is that we have a long-standing idiotic policy towards nuclear, which is the only way to come up with the amount of energy required to do widespread electrolysis without doing more environmental harm than good in the immediate term. You can argue about whether as much damage would be done in the long term but the basic facts as i see them are that most of the problems with nuclear have to do with short-sighted implementation issues driven by commercial (not technological) concerns.  Designs have existed that address the major issues for decades, but they have not been implemented because..... we don't have a government able/willing to do national scale energy infrastructure projects (*plays Lion King circle of life song ironically*) and private industry essentially refuses to invest huge sums on long-game nuclear plans that are safer but not substantially more profitable than stringing along ancient deathtrap reactors because the government won't explicitly underwrite the risks. I see absolutely no irony in real progress being impeded by the cost of privately insuring something of national interest that the government won't insure itself. Like healthcare. Anyway, with the lead time to get new reactors up and running, many people now say it's too late to turn the tide of fossil-fuel related environmental damage even if we started building today. But maybe the continued improvement in the cost of solar will render the 'giant nuclear mistake' void anyway, in spite of all the failures in the solar policy arena. Such as that the manufacturer of the panels on top of the Carter white house wasn't competing with the Chinese because the Chinese didn't actually start their long road to solar dominance until after Reagan took the panels down and slashed the Carter solar expenditures by 2/3rds in the infancy of  US solar's commercial viability. 

Ok, im seeing myself out for all of our sanity.