Designing an FE Car from the ground up.

[Sludgy]

I'm surprised that nobody posted drivetrain designs. Efficiency starts with the engine, transmission and its accessories. Here's my candidate for an ultra-efficient drivetrain:

ENGINE

Two cylinder gas engine, a "boxer" layout for good balance and even firing.
About 1.5 liters
Undersquare bore and stroke
Cast iron block
Aluminum heads
DOHC
4 valves per cylinder
Atkinson cycle cam timing primarily, but high valve overlap at high speed
Direct fuel injection
Lean burn, open loop at idle, closed loop at load.

ACCESSORIES

NO belt drives
Ebullient (boiling water) cooling or thermosiphon
Electric radiator fan
High capacity (NIB?) alternator (mounted on crankshaft, like a Harley Davidson) generating electricity only on decelleration or low battery voltage
Deep cycle battery
Electric power steering (or none)
Water-based based adsorption system A/C using either ammonia, lithium bromide or silica gel. (A/C would be powered by exhaust heat.)

TRANSMISSION

Magnetic eddy current CV automatic transmission. This would not require fluids, clutches, bands or torque converter. These are already commercially available from Magnadrive. http://www.magnadrive.com/

This drivetrain should power a Corolla-sized vehicle from 0-60 mph in 10-12 seconds, and could get upwards of 50 mpg highway WITHOUT weird shapes or aero mods. In a Prius body, it'd get 60 mpg. In a streamliner, it'd get 100 mpg.

The logical company to develop an drivetrain like this would be Subaru, since they already make boxer engines. Subaru doesn't seem to be focussed on economy these days, though.

[Mighty Mira]

Originally Posted by Sludgy

I'm surprised that nobody posted drivetrain designs. Efficiency starts with the engine, transmission and its accessories. Here's my candidate for an ultra-efficient drivetrain:

Thanks for that, very interesting!

My point with starting off with the aero stuff is that it once you determine (minimize) the maximum and steady state load conditions, then you are in the best position to select an appropriate engine size and even the basic type of engine (electric, gas, almost rubber bands etc). Although potentially it will do a bit of chugging on acceleration and hill climbs. With all that you'd be able to get away with a smaller engine and thus the load on it would be higher and more efficient. With a 1.5l engine it'd be a sportscar.

Very interesting about all the belt driven accessories.

[The Toecutter]

I think such a car should be designed with the possibility of there being a choice multiple drive systems one could buy for their vehicle.

For instance, the above diesel concept I mentioned. It should also be designed so that it could accomodate an electric drive and lots of batteries. Imagine, for instance, if there was this huge space under the floor to fit 2,000 pounds of lead acid batteries. In a car that aerodynamic, it could have 150-200 miles highway range on cheap lead acid batteries, no NiMH or Li Ion needed. Sure, the car might end up weighing 4,500 pounds in such a case, but with a dual 8" motor setup and Zilla 2k controller with a series/parallel shift in place, it would still do 0-60 mph in 6 seconds. It would probably cost the same as its diesel counterpart, sacrificing some range and incurring a long refeulling time for the benefit of more performance and dramatically lower operating cost. Or for increased performance and range but with higher cost, give the option for advanced batteries, say a Li Ion option to cut the weight down to 2,900 pounds(same as diesel counterpart), extend range to 300 miles, and drop 0-60 time to 4 seconds, but it might cost $20k extra.

The same platform should also be designed around a CNG engine and tanks as well.

Imagine the buyer being able to walk into a dealership and choose which kind of fuel they want the car to run on. With 150 miles range, many would be able to use the pure EV on cheap lead acid batteries for all of their driving needs, while some would rather have the diesel and run it on B100.

The whole idea is to keep costs down though. Going to a plug-in hybrid would mean paying for two drive systems, which would bring the ciost up quite high.