Ford Promises 30% Better Mileage Using Ethanol Injection

[JohnWxy]

http://gas2.org/2008/09/03/ford-promises-30-better-mileage-using-ethanol-injection/


Although Ford’s first generation Ecoboost engines start hitting the market next year — promising a 20% gain in fuel economy over traditional engines — Ford is already tweaking their new Bobcat technology to squeeze out even more fuel efficiency from the direct ethanol injection system.

The technology works by merging a turbocharger with a high compression ratio in the same engine. Combining these two features normally results in an incompatible and disastrous mix which causes premature detonation of the fuel/air mixture — referred to as engine knock.


Ford gets around this incompatibility by injecting a small amount of ethanol into the gas/air mixture before detonation in the combustion chamber. Purportedly, the addition of the ethanol cools the mixture enough that it doesn’t ignite until the engine tells it to, thus preventing the dreaded knock.

The combination of high compression and turbocharging mean that the Bobcat-powered engines will behave more like diesel engines than gas engines by providing huge amounts of torque.
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This engine uses about 5% ethanol and 95% gasoline, so you get the 25% - 30% better mileage but with 1/20th the amount of ethanol that an E85 engine uses.

The engines extra cost is about $700 - $1,000.

more info here: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/10/startup_working.html

NOt the final answer but in the 25 yrs it will take electric cars (plug-in hybrids) to make a significant impact this engine will reduce our demand for fossil fuels saving us lots of money which will be needed to fund the expansion of electric cars.

Note that by getting 25% to 30% better gas mileage with only 5% as much ethanol that means 25% to 30% reduction in CO2 and other GHGs with 1/20th as much ethanol or 20 times the performance in terms of GHG reduction for ethanol.

cost of farm commodities down dramatically: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x50156