'The age of engine downsizing is over, says Volkswagen'.

[Ryeman]

I can see my 'old' batteries subsequently being used for home storage, which is current thinking, but science is blisteringly fast in solving solutions given an ever decreasing amount of time.

[vrskeith]

Future concepts ;http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/scalable-technology-could-save-combustion-engine

[lol-lol]

6 hours ago, chimaera said:

Oh it's being worked on for sure, but it's still a good way from being viable at the scale needed for cars.

 

Never mind that we're starting to see battery ranges in the 500 km range from Tesla, coupled with high speed charging. By the time hydrogen production is cheap enough to be viable, it might be outclassed by battery tech anyway. The main downside to batteries for now remains the loss of capacity with time and at low temperatures but these are also being worked on furiously by scientists.

 

There are already some ways of working that are helping EV range and Renault's My "ZE Interactive" you can "phone" the car and precondition it so it is toasty when you get in and it does this on mains power so you can have the 200 mile range as you drive off rather than disconnecting the mains power and driving off using the cara battery power.  Tesla are launching their 100 KWh https://electrek.co/2017/01/24/tesla-teardown-100-kwh-battery-pack/ , actually 102 kWh, is impressive and cooling the pack rather than keeping it warm for optimum capacity is more the issues.

 

Might be worth keeping the EV in the garage overnight so it does not get cold and affect charge capacity so much but that means cleaning the garage out which us Brits are not too good at and our garages tend to be barely large enough for one small EV plus the motorcycle, must get a much bigger shed to store the junk.  Question then is whether to have the charge box on the inside or outside of the garage wall?    

[Ryeman]

There is obviously a limit to "engine downsizing" .

[Ootohere]

That seemed in recent times to be 660cc Turbos. 

VW bought into Suzuki because Suzuki had being doing lots of Research with Small Capacity Turbo Engines used with Electric Motors in partnership with GM.

Electric Superchargers (Turbos) & Motors.  ie Hybrids.  Petrol & Diesel.

 

VW wanting the technology from Suzuki but not to share the VW secrets. (Cheats)

http://bbc.co.uk/news/business-14877009

http://bbc.co.uk/news/business-34275917

(Buy back finally the night before the VW Emissions scandal broke in the USA....)

*Stefan Jacoby who was the Head of VW North America 2007-2010 the time the 'New Green Diesels were introduced to the USA is a Senior Executive with GM Global, actually President GM International.*

 

The 660cc Turbo engines have worked for decades now in vehicles with the right weight, including the Caterham Seven 160.

http://autocar.co.uk/car-review/caterham/seven-160/design

http://autocar.co.uk/car-review/caterham/seven-160 

 

 

Edited 6 February, 2017 by Offski

[Ryeman]

The Japanese have had a motorcycle engine powered vehicle category for many decades along with width restrictions solely designed for domestic use.

Honda's chain driven sports car from the seventies I seem to recall.

[Ootohere]

900 cc seemed to be where it was going with other manufacturers or 1.000 cc with VW Group and non turbo and not 1.0 TSI even in the Octavia.

They have just had to come up with a news story to cover themselves yet again, 

talk about their future and hope memories are short on what they have in Dealerships now for sale and what people have bought just recently because they were hyping the latest greatest thing.

 

 

[lol-lol]

 

Suzuki had the the XN85 bike...

 

670 cc  - 85 hp..

 

Edited 6 February, 2017 by lol-lol

[Ootohere]

As we know they build specific engines for passenger cars, as do Honda & Yamaha and have for decades so they all have the expertise.

 

Maybe VW should have refined their Air Cooled engines then got that working perfectly, then got the hang on keeping oil & water in and water out of cars cabins until they got that right they should not have kept 'innovating' and they would not be in the state they are now.

Always moving on with new technology and never having achieved what they should have with the last just leaving the customers with lemons quite often because Quality Control is not a priority.

Edited 6 February, 2017 by Offski

[Aspman]

If they could crack mass production of carbon fibre or other lightweight materials / /building techniques then we'll be able to do more with less.

 

Me beemer is nearly 2 tons on the road.

[Ryeman]

Manchester university's Graphene Institute is where disruptive tech could originate before long, hopefully.

[Ootohere]

BMW do nice Motor Cycle engines of various capacity and downsized petrols & diesels for cars to 3 cylinders and 500 cc per cylinder rather well.

They have a range extender engine for the i3.

 

VW are just always behind the curve on everything.

All this Motorsport Heritage and success from VW, AUDI, Skoda & SEAT and even Porsche and yet it never seems to be trickling down to the affordable showroom cars.

Special Edition lightened GTI Clubsport S to catch the Magazines attention and the likes.

The original Audi A2 was and still is special but again VW can not build on that and produce the likes and make them affordable and reliable for this decade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_A2

Edited 6 February, 2017 by Offski

[Aspman]

1 hour ago, Offski said:

All this Motorsport Heritage and success from VW, AUDI, Skoda & SEAT and even Porsche and yet it never seems to be trickling down to the affordable showroom cars.

 

 

Why bother, Golfs and A4s sell anyway?

After the **** ups recently I suspect they'll double down on existing designs to save money on development. Or they'll buy in a hybrid drivetrain from someone else.

 

We certainly seem to be in a period of evolution not revolution.

It'll be advances in batteries and charging that'll produce the next jump in tech, the ICE must be close to its limits really.

[Ootohere]

They are more into spending on advertising and lawyers and take overs to be the biggest and best rather than actually just building the best.

If they concentrate on Expending and research rather than spinning how Great they are they would not be in the mess they are.

 

Press Releases every day that is a Bad News Day, so several times a week now.

 

Just watch the Ducati story on Twist the Throttle on Quest.  Wonderful story and lovely since VW took over in 2012.

But i googled the story on why they bought Ducati and it made me laugh.

They are so up the bum of the founding family of Porsche.

[Wet Kipper]

On 2/5/2017 at 10:50, lol-lol said:

 

The company is Volkswagen Audi Group

   

 

Actually it's Volkswagen AG (AktienGesellschaft = "shares-company" = plc)

[keystonedriving]

So where does the electricity for these wonderful 'zero emissions' vehicles come from?

 

The Emperor appears not to be wearing clothes again today.......

[Ryeman]

2 minutes ago, keystonedriving said:

So where does the electricity for these wonderful 'zero emissions' vehicles come from?

 

The Emperor appears not to be wearing clothes again today.......

A combination.....off peak, wind, solar, hydro, home accumulation and storage.

[keystonedriving]

2 minutes ago, Ryeman said:

A combination.....off peak, wind, solar, hydro, home accumulation and storage.

 

Not much in the UK comes that way, and very little in the areas it is needed.  Perhaps if there was a large wind turbine every quarter mile on each bank of the Thames from Hampton Court to Greenwich it might help, but the nimbys would never allow that.

[SWBoy]

2 minutes ago, Ryeman said:

A combination.....off peak, wind, solar, hydro, home accumulation and storage.

A couple of thoughts:

- what generates the bulk of "off-peak" electricity? Nuclear? Gas?

- during a winter anti-cyclonic block lasting several days (which happens at least once per winter in the UK) there can be little or no wind and little or no solar, so there will also be little or no home accumulation or storage.

[Ryeman]

1 minute ago, SWBoy said:

A couple of thoughts:

- what generates the bulk of "off-peak" electricity? Nuclear? Gas?

- during a winter anti-cyclonic block lasting several days (which happens at least once per winter in the UK) there can be little or no wind and little or no solar, so there will also be little or no home accumulation or storage.

A bit different here though........we'll be independent before much longer, when home storage/battery are marketed widely and cost comes down.

So much is changing nobody knows what will be the situation in ten years.

[Aspman]

Hydrogen storage is a problem as well even if you can make it cheaply.

 

If have a dig around "proton/hydrogen embrittlement", essentially storing hydrogen at high pressures causes metal containers to get brittle, which is bad considering the pressures involved.

 

Also hydrogen compared to petrol is actually a bit crap. To get it to a liquid the pressure is biblically high and as a gas even at very high pressure petrol gives more energy for a given volume.

 

These things are probably not insurmountable but my guess is battery tech is going to improve first and that will be the way forward or maybe some sort of methane/ammonia fuel cell.

[Ryeman]

2 minutes ago, Aspman said:

Hydrogen storage is a problem as well even if you can make it cheaply.

 

If have a dig around "proton/hydrogen embrittlement", essentially storing hydrogen at high pressures causes metal containers to get brittle, which is bad considering the pressures involved.

 

Also hydrogen compared to petrol is actually a bit crap. To get it to a liquid the pressure is biblically high and as a gas even at very high pressure petrol gives more energy for a given volume.

 

These things are probably not insurmountable but my guess is battery tech is going to improve first and that will be the way forward or maybe some sort of methane/ammonia fuel cell.

Funny that Toyota was for fuel cell but then they changed there mind in favour of BEV.

Now GM and Honda are collaborating on fuel cell.

[Ryeman]

GM and Honda JV in fuel cell 

http://www.goauto.com.au/mellor/mellor.nsf/story2/F41C11B7F1DE5BD4CA2580B900051CE6

[chimaera]

1 hour ago, SWBoy said:

A couple of thoughts:

- what generates the bulk of "off-peak" electricity? Nuclear? Gas?

- during a winter anti-cyclonic block lasting several days (which happens at least once per winter in the UK) there can be little or no wind and little or no solar, so there will also be little or no home accumulation or storage.

Much of it is spare capacity from 'core' generating stations that are difficult or inefficient to throttle down. These would be the likes of coal, natural gas, nuclear plants: the loss of efficiency resulting from reducing fuel supply would be too great, plus there can be a lag time of several hours from deciding to ramp back up and actually seeing the output on the grid. Better to keep them running and dump the power as best you can hence cheap night rate electricity. Easily switchable sources such as hydro and wind are used to make up the additional demand during peak times.

 

There are options being explored to store energy from wind generation to be released during low-wind conditions. One possibility is pumped storage hydroelectric generation: use the wind power to refill the reservoir when wind conditions are favourable and use the hydroelectric generator to release the energy consistently.

 

 

[lol-lol]

2 hours ago, SWBoy said:

A couple of thoughts:

- what generates the bulk of "off-peak" electricity? Nuclear? Gas?

- during a winter anti-cyclonic block lasting several days (which happens at least once per winter in the UK) there can be little or no wind and little or no solar, so there will also be little or no home accumulation or storage.

 

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/