Boost Fuel Economy

Today every company may be trying to improve its car efficiency w.r.t. fuel. There is one small side benefit to gasoline selling above $4 a gallon and oil prices setting new records almost daily. From lonely inventors to small research firms to big car makers, everyone is scrambling to find new ways to improve fuel economy. They're not just working on the hybrid-electric vehicles and electric cars that make big headlines. Engineers across the globe are also working on ways to improve the good old gasoline engines that power today's cars.

For example MCE-5 Development. This researcher based in Lyon, France, is the latest company to try to make a gasoline engine that will give cars the efficiency of hybrid-electric vehicles and clean diesels for a fraction of the cost. MCE-5 says it can get a 35% fuel economy boost from its 1.5-liter, four-cylinder engine. In a test lab, the company has gotten 220 hp and about 45 mpg, and all for less than $1,000 a vehicle.

The company believes that even by the middle of the next decade, when its engines will be ready for production, hybrids will still be too expensive for every driver. "It's possible to have the fuel efficiency of a hybrid for one-tenth the cost," says Vianney Rabhi, director of strategy and development for MCE-5. "Even if there's a big step in battery development, hybrids will be costly."

Optimum Compression

There are, of course, plenty of skeptics. Some say the technology will be more expensive than manufacturers think once they try to mass produce it. Plus, by 2015 hybrids may be much cheaper and better performing. "No one will dispute the results they get," says Phil Gott, director of automotive consulting for Boston-based Global Insight. "The challenge is taking it out of the lab and designing it for mass production." Others say the technology could simply be used with a hybrid system to make a super-efficient car.

The whole idea is to make a gasoline engine operate more like a diesel engine. The engine compresses the mix of air and fuel under higher pressure than today's conventional engines, forcing the piston to move faster and generate more torque. MCE-5 also has a series of gears that can adjust the compression of the air and fuel mix to optimize fuel economy. Gearheads call it Variable Compression Ratio (VCR), because the cars are engineered to run at the optimum compression of fuel and air rather than at one steady rate.

Other engineering companies and car makers are working on a similar concept. Mercedes-Benz said last year that it may start selling an engine with the same kind of technology sometime in the next decade.Now they must also work on the alternative fuels. As oil is running out rapidly .