The very first practical automobile was the 1886 Benz Motorwagen created in Stuttgart by Karl Benz. That first car was powered by a small gasoline fueled engine that ran on a four-stroke cycle developed by fellow German Karl Otto. Later another German, Rudolph Diesel, developed the compression ignition engine that would end up carrying his name and the company that evolved from the work of Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler would be the first to use the type in production in the 1920s. Now in 2007 Mercedes-Benz is working on bringing the two staple four-stroke engine types of the twentieth century together under the name DiesOtto combining the aspects of the Diesel and Otto cycles. The Mercedes engineers have created a 1.8L gasoline fueled four-cylinder that gets the fuel economy of a diesel. The engine puts out 238hp and 295lb-ft of torque and a mild hybrid system gets better than 39mpg in a vehicle the size of an S-Class. The use of direct injection, variable valve control, turbocharging, have allowed them to create a combination HCCI engine and standard gas engine that operates in compression ignition mode under light loads and spark ignition at other times. This allows it to operate with only a standard three-way-catalyst rather than the expensive diesel after-treatment systems. Now they just need to get it into series production.
Read full article here.
No comments:
Post a Comment