HCCI
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Efforts by automakers to increase fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions have intensified in recent years as emission rules have tightened and the effects of climate change are better analyzed. While electric cars and hybrids will grow in popularity, the internal-combustion engine remains the default way of power—and likely will for years to come. The latest effort to make engines more fuel-efficient will come from Nissan's premium brand, Infiniti, in the form of itsnew variable-compression turbocharged (VC-T) inline-4 engine. DON'T MISS: Infiniti variable-compression engine: more...
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Mazda's SkyActiv-X: diesel fuel economy from gasoline engine
The internal combustion engine, now more than 200 years old, will be with us for a long time to come yet. Powering more than 1 billion vehicles on the planet and almost 100 million new ones each year, it is the default way to move vehicles along the world's roads. With its carbon emissions now...
John Voelcker -
How Mazda's SkyActiv-X engine, based on HCCI, actually works (video)
Earlier this month, Japanese automaker Mazda laid out its future powertrain strategy and dropped a massive announcement in the process. In 2019, Mazda will introduce a gasoline-powered Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition engine, dubbed Skyactiv-X, that the automaker promises will offer huge...
Sean Szymkowski -
2019 Mazda 3 to feature world-first HCCI engine for efficiency: report
It's a technology that's been a sort of Holy Grail in the auto industry for at least a couple of decades. Now Mazda, one of the smallest global automakers, plans to introduce it in a radical new engine to be used in a future Mazda vehicle in 2019. It's called homogeneous charge compression...
John Voelcker -
Mazda to launch homogeneous-charge compression engine next year
The differences between gasoline and diesel engines lie not only in their fuels, but in how those fuels are ignited. Gasoline engines use spark plugs, while diesels simply use compression. But it is possible to ignite gasoline in an internal-combustion engine with compression, as in a diesel. DON'T...
Stephen Edelstein -
Could Future Mazda Engines Emit Less CO2 Than Electric Cars?
Is it possible to make a gasoline engine so efficient that it would emit less carbon dioxide per mile than is created by generating electricity to run an electric car over that same mile? Small Japanese carmaker Mazda says yes. In an interview published last week with the British magazine Autocar...
John Voelcker -
For years, spark plugs have been used to ignite the compressed fuel-air mix inside the cylinders of a gasoline engine to produce power. Now a new prototype engine is promising a future in which a gasoline engine behaves like a diesel engine, self-igniting the fuel as it is injected into the cylinder instead of using a sparking plug. Called Gasoline Direct-injection Compression Ignition (GDCI), the process results in engines that are low in particulate emissions and high in efficiency. Similar to the way in which diesel engines work, GDCI engines compress air within the cylinder before...
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U.S. Gas Is Too Dirty For Our Best Engines, Mercedes-Benz Says
We rarely think about what's in our gasoline when we fill the tank, but carmakers have to. Mercedes-Benz has just launched a new direct-injected 3.5-liter V-6 engine in its 2012 SLK model, with an innovative "lean burn" mode that will also be used on a smaller four-cylinder engine. The "Stratified"...
John Voelcker -
Big Mileage Gains From Really, Really Small Engines
We keep saying that one of the ways all cars will get greener and more efficient is for their engines to get smaller and work harder. One of the first production examples of this is Ford's EcoBoost V6 engine, which delivers the power of a V8 with better gas mileage. Now a couple of experimental new...
John Voelcker