Interesting article about turbine powered cars

mrtask said:
Stumbled on an interesting article all about turbine engines in cars whilst surfing the web, thought you guys might enjoy reading about how innovative Rover were with their turbine designs for the P6:
http://jalopnik.com/5546713/a-brief-his ... owered-car
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Another Jalopnik reader! I can reveal that Lotus' Chief Powertrain Research Engineer, Jamie Turner, reckons that gas turbines have a future as a range extender for electric cars (which sorts the fuel consumption and torque issues). Jaguar are working on a turbine version of the "Limo Green" (3-cylinder Lotus-designed and built engine driving a generator filling a battery feeding electric motors)... I think you'd also find the Capstone CMT-380 very interesting. Turbine range extenders are THE future of eco-friendly, economical motoring as far as I'm concerned.
 
Intresting read, maybe a reprint in the club news letter for the internet challanged. (if the arthur would allow). They were not far of from v8 MPG figures, with modern engneering and metals they could do better. Will be intresting.
 
richarduk said:
Intresting read, maybe a reprint in the club news letter for the internet challanged. (if the arthur would allow). They were not far of from v8 MPG figures, with modern engneering and metals they could do better. Will be intresting.
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What you need is a tiny microturbine as a range extender for electric cars. Pure turbines will never work.
 
I think that is the idea that's being talked about generally isnt it? Microturbine as a generator for vauxhall ampera/volt type vehicles which are even more fuel efficient?
 
rockdemon said:
I think that is the idea that's being talked about generally isnt it? Microturbine as a generator for vauxhall ampera/volt type vehicles which are even more fuel efficient?
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Yeah. The Ampera/Chevy Volt uses a four-pot petrol engine, but Lotus, Jaguar and others are looking very seriously at microturbines. Of course, you can also include a plug-in element to these cars - today's power stations are still many times more efficient at generating electricity than your small-scale turbine setup under your bonnet. However, this would mean that your car would be weighed down with batteries... ideally you'd have a choice between light weight (but having your turbine turning'n'burning much more) or putting up with more weight and better efficiency - whether the additional weight would cancel out the fuel economy advantage, I cannot say, I'm not an engineer.
 
EccentricRichard said:
today's power stations are still many times more efficient at generating electricity than your small-scale turbine setup under your bonnet
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I think that this is the main draw of electric vehicles. You decouple the dependacy of the fuel source from the vehicle, can't have a 150 foot windmill on the back of a P6. :LOL: The real stalling point is the Batteries, once they give the same range as a full tank and take about the same space then it's a done deal. At that point you could even consider some kind of retro fit 'kit'. With so many cars now being front wheel drive and sharing pritty much the same engine layout a self contained battry / motor unit could be made to slot in the space left by the engine.

One elephant in the room though are the chemicals currently used to make the batteries for these 'green' cars, can be quite nasty........

Odear, gone well of topic now.... it is lunch time here....... :D
 
Seems to me there's some rather muddled thinking going on here. The efficiency of an IC engine is determined primarily by its compression ratio. This is fundamental thermodynamics driven by Boyles law. Hence why a diesel has a head start in the "normal" car economy stakes. A gas turbine is a bit of a disaster on this score. Luckily for the nation the combined cycle gas turbine does rather better. But you're not going to fit one of those in a car - you're going to need a tank transporter for even the most minitiarised one you could conceive of. A lot of car nuts often confuse "efficiency" with "power density". I strongly suspect this is going on here. If you really want to create an efficient car (note - not necessarily power dense - it could be the slowest thing you've ever set eyes on) then the best avaialble technology today is a diesel electric with regenerative braking. The diesel being optimised for economical running at one engine speed and power outout only - ie solely to top up the traction battery. Nobody makes one yet. The nearest is the latest Prius which does at least get regenerative braking. But it has both a petrol engine and that engine contributes to traction rather than simply topping the battery. A long way to go yet. The only possible advantage of a turbine in a car is the power density discussion to keep the weight down - but it isn't going to do anything for economy.

Chris
 
chrisyork said:
Seems to me there's some rather muddled thinking going on here. The efficiency of an IC engine is determined primarily by its compression ratio. This is fundamental thermodynamics driven by Boyles law. Hence why a diesel has a head start in the "normal" car economy stakes. A gas turbine is a bit of a disaster on this score. Luckily for the nation the combined cycle gas turbine does rather better. But you're not going to fit one of those in a car - you're going to need a tank transporter for even the most minitiarised one you could conceive of. A lot of car nuts often confuse "efficiency" with "power density". I strongly suspect this is going on here. If you really want to create an efficient car (note - not necessarily power dense - it could be the slowest thing you've ever set eyes on) then the best avaialble technology today is a diesel electric with regenerative braking. The diesel being optimised for economical running at one engine speed and power outout only - ie solely to top up the traction battery. Nobody makes one yet. The nearest is the latest Prius which does at least get regenerative braking. But it has both a petrol engine and that engine contributes to traction rather than simply topping the battery. A long way to go yet. The only possible advantage of a turbine in a car is the power density discussion to keep the weight down - but it isn't going to do anything for economy.

Chris
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Not true. Others have already built turbine cars and discovered that, even with weight similar to, say, a Prius, there's a MASSIVE improvement in economy - partly it's due to the plug-in element, partly due to the fact that your turbine isn't driving a load of reciprocating masses.
 
I'm curious as to what these microturbines actually are. A conventional twin shaft liquid fuelled turbine of whatever size should be horrendously inefficient compared to a diesel. Do you have any links to a technical description?

Chris
 
I was offered a Honda Insight as a company car ( Inshite as I called it ) Turned it down
This is a petrol engined car with electric backup when you need extra power .
Apparently no-one achieves the fantastic MPG figures claimed
 
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