IC here for a long time yet, say US pundits

A conference in Detroit has heard that there's no end in sight for the internal-combustion engine.

The US Department of Energy’s 2011 Directions in Engine-Efficiency and Emissions Research Conference (DEER) in Detroit drew pundits from industry and from regulation agencies and if they’re to be listened to, the heavy transport sector in particular will remain dependent on IC engines well into the future, Green Car Congress reports.

“The future of the IC engine is bright and clear; I don’t think that could be any more obvious to all of us,” Byron Bunker, director of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality at the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Heavy Duty Engine Centre, told fellow panelists and audience at a discussion on the future of IC.

While not discounting the rise of EVs and PHEVs, Bunker pointed out that 95 per cent or more of heavy duty vehicles still rely on IC and there’s no evidence of change there for some considerable time to come. Regardless of new medium- and heavy-duty fuel economy and greenhouse gas regulations from EPA and the Department of Transportation, the future as he and the EPA sees it is filled with “very conventional-looking engines”, he said.

Narrow-minded? Far from it. “While many over time have grown dismissive of radical new engine ideas, remember that they have the opportunity to change the dynamic... we should not discount novel engine designs,” he said.

Indeed he suggests IC engines will likely undergo considerable change within their conventional framework. The push towards cleanliness and fuel-efficiency should, and will, continue, with engines better able to cope with fuel variations, helped by constant improvement in sensor technologies and adaptive control systems.

Makers should shift their emphasis from elastic power delivery to higher peak efficiency, he added. And while he applauds design and development programs allowing cost-efficient volume production, he suggests they be designed and made for maximum flexibility to optimise their performance according to specific uses, particularly for heavy vehicles.

Others suggested a similar future among lighter vehicles.

Hugh Blaxill, Managing Director of global automotive engineering firm Mahle Powertrain pointed to the downsizing and hybridisation trends and the rapid rise of fuel efficiency technologies like direct injection and VVT systems as evidence of IC’s hunkering down to survive.

Blaxill said Mahle sees downsizing set to continue long-term – 2030 and beyond – with fours dropping to triples, engines becoming friendlier to bio- and gaseous fuels and electrification continuing to grow.

GCC reports that an opening address, from Dr David Greene of the DoE’s Tennessee-based Oak Ridge National Laboratory, put the contributions of speakers like Bunker and Blaxill into ‘the wider context of an ultimate transition to a different form of energy—ie non-petroleum-based—for transportation’.

Greene suggested that among the three major energy challenges of climate change mitigation, energy security, and sustainability, “...the number one priority, I think, is and should be improving the energy efficiency of the global transportation system.”

Even as other sources such as electricity, hydrogen and biofuels are introduced, first priority must go to improving energy efficiency, via a cost-effective mix of technology and public policy, he said.

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