The 20th century is indubitably the era of advancement. Gone are the days when people used to take the services of carthorses to carry out the routine tasks. Now, cars are the biggest mode of transportation. Having said that, regardless of the advancement made in the automotive industry, there is always a room for improvement. Keeping a close weather on this factor and in order to cope up with the needs, the automakers started thinking of implementing new technologies in the automobiles.
In order to keep the rat race on, every single automaker has thrown their hat in the ring. All did their best to provide the people with a better vehicle than the rivals. This is the reason we see new technologies in engines every few days. No matter how sturdiest is the engine under your car’s bonnet, engine failure is still common. Resultantly, reconditioned and used engines are the remedy in this case.
Here, we are going to discuss the few latest car engine technologies which have revolutionised the automotive industry. Let’s get into this:
Camless Engines
If you spend a moment just talking about the current engine that is being used in the cars, they use variable valve timing having a variable valve lift apparatus. For this case, not very much flexibility is expected from these engines. But, hold on. The excitement game begins right here. Camless engines technology offers infinite variable valve timing due to the reason that these units have the flexibility to autonomously charge the valves inside the cylinders in the course of the combustion cycle.
Also known as a free-valve piston engine, the Camless engine’s valves are operated through hydraulic, electromagnetic, or air-filled actuators in the place of traditional cams. The aforementioned actuators are responsible for both the opening and closing of the valves.
Added to that, the Camless engines give the green light to changing the valve lift without imposing any a change in the mechanical architecture of the engine. The Camless engines are perfect for performance modification thanks to their utmost flexibility. These engines are just around the corner as there are a bunch of automakers are already tied up with these.
Opposed-Piston-Opposed-Cylinder (OPOC)
Opposed-Piston-Opposed-Cylinder technology is the next latest engine technology. The aforementioned technology stands in need of an extra set of pistons that resist the conventional pistons. That means a single combustion chamber is used for moving two pistons. OPOC is the most far-reaching and innovative technology to date. Added to that, it offers well-nigh 15% more frugality as compared to the conventional engines. That’s the factor which makes it the most important technology used in engines.
Hybrid Engine Technology
The term “Hybrid” means the fusion of two different power sources to come up with an improved combined efficiency. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, the hybrid is no longer a new thing anymore when it comes to engines. Hybrid engines out there in the market these days are petrol-based having an electric motor, be that as it may, few of the hybrid vehicles are coupled with diesel engines too.
The function of the electric motor is assisting the vehicle in starting off the engine. With that, the electric motor is also responsible for running the vehicle on the highways under appropriate conditions that means very little or even no consumption of fossil fuel engine.
Due to this very same factor, fuel usage has been scaled down. Some of the most renowned automobile manufacturing brands such as BMW, Toyota, Land Rover and Nissan are working on hybrid engine technologies to win the rate race.
Direct Injection Turbo Ethanol Engine
It’s a common concept regarding higher compression ratio that it can intensify the fuel efficiency to a great extent, be that as it may, that doesn’t work for petrol engines. On that account, a normal engine is unable to press higher rate of compression into service in the deficiency of Ethanol boost.
That being the case, the Direct Injection Turbo engine technology let the petrol engines give the thumbs up to higher compression ratios and due to this technology, petrol engines can work as efficiently as diesel engines. Direct Injection means spraying the amalgam of fuel and air directly into the whole lot combustion chamber.
If you spend a moment just talking about the fuel economy offered by this latest technology, it offers fuel economy more than you can shake a stick at. Due to the highly improved method, it uses to inject fuel, the fuel economy is much more improved now. Because of this, the amount of fuel required by each cylinder is calculated and controlled much more precisely.
Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS)
Here comes another latest engine technology named as Kinetic Energy Recovery System. The KERS is very innovative but pretty expensive car engine technology. Basically, the purpose of introducing this technology in engines is to recover the kinetic energy released when brakes are applied. By implementing this technology in engines, this energy can be used to uplift the transmission system to power the car.
There is no denying the fact that this is a very complex technology but with the help of a cleverly plotted mechanism, the released energy can be reused that would otherwise waste. In this case, the race is on. Automakers including Volvo and Jaguar are working on this technology to boost the fuel efficiency of their cars.
Cylinder Deactivation Technology
This technology is around the corner too. It’s being tested in big engines like V6 and V8. The reason behind the implementation of this technology is that when you are driving the car along the freeway, only the quantity of fuel is needed in order to keep it running at stable momentum. Straight after that, with the introduction of this engine technology, the unnecessary cylinders are deactivated automatically.
For instance, you can make the argument that the 8 cylinder engine will use only four engines when the rest of the four are not required, without the driver knowing it. No this is the factor that needs huge attention because it’s nearly impossible to know this activation and deactivation due to this process’s seamlessness. But, this technology will help save more fuel and the end result will be improved efficiency on the road.
So what exactly is the future of the engines?
The future of the engines seems to be in safe hands thanks to all the advancements in engine technology and the healthy competition among automakers. State of the art engines under the roofs of the cars is not a distant dream any more.
COMMENTS