Table of Contents
Duggan Flanakin
Duggan Flanakin is a senior policy analyst with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow.
In his 1968 book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe portrays LSD pioneer Ken Kesey as “seeking to create a new religion.” Fifty-three years later, President Joe Biden put his imprimatur, with equal religious fervor, on the battery-electric vehicle.
Biden was hardly the first political leader to endorse a forced shift away from the internal combustion engine. Norway began the process in the l990s, with other nations soon joining in a European Union mandate that preceded the US action.
Many see China as the biggest beneficiary of the electric vehicle mandates, and for good reason. Their heavily subsidized (including by forced labor) lithium battery and electric vehicle industries are, sans tariffs, undercutting almost every other nation’s auto industry, forcing many into seeking protections that cannot hold back the tide forever.
In the US, several states, led by California, have gone beyond the federal mandate to force electric vehicles – including heavy trucks – down the throats of an unwilling public. On the other hand, multiple automakers, notably Ford, have lost so much money trying to comply with Washington and Sacramento they are backing away from previous boastful commitments.
There are, we are learning, other ways to comply with ever-tightening carbon dioxide emissions rules. Both automakers and fuel experts are coming up with a myriad of ‘solutions’ that would not require massive charging networks and an overtaxing of an already fragile electric grid.
Once again, government and the fawning media told us that ‘the science is settled,’ and that the plug-in electric was the only path forward to prevent the entire planet from literally catching on fire and burning humanity alive. Yet people have uncovered multiple flies in this supposed ointment, including the sad propensity of lithium-ion batteries to catch fire and to be disabled during power outages or when submerged in water.
For whatever reasons, scientists and engineers have forged pathways to new fuels, new engines, and other innovative solutions to the presumed ‘carbon crisis’ that is the driving force behind the desired abolition of gasoline and diesel fuels.
Despite the mandates issued by politicians and bureaucrats, the auto buying community, the automotive engineers, and even the automakers are saying there has to be a better way forward. Here’s a look at just a few of the emerging developments in auto engineering and fuels technologies.
Ferrari was one of the key drivers of Italy’s demand that the EU back off the ‘battery-electric only’ mandate. Ferrari has an engine that runs on hydrogen as fuel. Hydrogen fuels also have zero carbon-dioxide emissions, low nitrogen-oxides emissions, and the potential to replace gasoline and diesel fuels. But they also retain the sound of a gasoline engine while not needing a battery (let alone a thousand-pound battery) while offering advanced performance capabilities for high-speed driving.
A curious thing about the Ferrari hydrogen engine is that its operating system is upside down. The cylinder head has its cams and valve at the bottom and the crankshaft is in the lower position. The pressurized lubrication circuit is based on the use of a dry sump and includes three oil pumps to ensure that oil is not trapped in the combustion chamber.
Porsche has filed a patent for a six-stroke engine – intake, compression, power, compression again, power again, and exhaust. While two-stroke engines complete a combustion cycle after one crankshaft revolution, and four-strokes need two revolutions, the six-stroke, says Porsche, functions with “six individual strokes that can be divided into two three-stroke sequences.”
Porsche’s objective is efficient and optimal use of power, as power is achieved on every third stroke and there is a more thorough utilization of the air-fuel mix. Porsche also seeks to galvanize the development of the combustion engine with vastly increased energy efficiency.
Meanwhile, Indiana-based Cummins, known for its diesel engines, has recently unveiled a new-design 15-liter, 500-horsepower hydrogen engine that runs on water, emits only steam, and can be refueled in seconds. The Cummins engine is revolutionary in the transport industry as it can replace the conventional diesel engine and is environmentally friendly.
The hydrogen fuel is stored in a tank and transformed into electrical energy via a fuel cell, which can convert up to 60 per cent of the energy content of the hydrogen into electricity. The engine outputs up to 1,800 foot-pounds of torque for performance and towing capacity and has a fuel economy of up to 35 per cent better than normal diesel engines, yet it produces zero emissions. Cummins hopes its hydrogen engine will succeed though other fuel-cell electric vehicles have failed.
Even Elon Musk has announced a strategic pivot towards hydrogen-powered Teslas. In a significant shift from prior skepticism over hydrogen as an energy source, Musk’s first hydrogen-powered model, tentatively named Model H, is expected to debut in 2026.
One likely reason for Musk’s change of course is the may well be recent advances in hydrogen fuel cell technology and the potential for much faster refueling (a key reason people eschew battery-electric vehicles). Another is the widely recognized shortcomings of battery-electric for long-haul trucking and industrial vehicles (including tow trucks).
Additional interest in hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles comes from the $7 billion federal commitment to establish regional hydrogen production hubs and tax incentives for clean hydrogen production and fuel-cell vehicles. Still, the only public hydrogen fueling stations are in California, and both a lack of access to refueling and high current hydrogen prices resulted in fewer than 225 hydrogen vehicles being sold last year.
Yet another company, Kansas-based Astron Aerospace, recently introduced the H2Starfire engine, a rotary configuration that defies current combustion engine theories and has been dubbed “a near-impossible engine.” The engine has neither cylinders nor pistons and can use hydrogen as fuel. It is also very lightweight at just 35 pounds and may be able to achieve higher efficiency and performance – generating 160 horsepower.
The H2Starfire can reach up to 25,000 rpm and functions according to a principle that substantially diverges from conventional piston engines and Wankel rotaries. It achieves these using two sets of counter-rotating rotors: the aluminum half does the intake and compression jobs, while the titanium half at the rear handles expansion and exhaust. As the gears turn, the air and fuel are admitted and burned to produce power via a revolving motion.
This is but a sampling of the myriad of new engine designs that differ widely from the long-favored and heavily subsidized battery-electric vehicles that the Chinese can produce (with internal subsidies) and sell for far less than all other automakers. None of these engines require lithium mining, and none have heavy batteries that reduce load capacity and have other problems too numerous to recount here.
These hydrogen vehicles may never catch on unless the cost of hydrogen fuel drops dramatically and the number of hydrogen refueling stations increases dramatically. The public has tired of battery-electric vehicles as people realize that reselling older BEVs likely comes with buying a very expensive replacement battery. In the interim, automakers have continued to increase miles per gallon and reduce emissions from internal combustion gasoline and diesel engines.
All in all, those who long ago drank the battery-electric Kool-Aid may hope they are not living in Jonestown.
This article was originally published by CFACT.
