News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Wave Disk Engine Could Be 3.5 Times More Efficient Than Combustion Engines. Parent comment

Re:Wave Disk Engine Could Be 3.5 Times More Efficient Than C... by lutorm on Thursday March 17, 2011 @03:26PM (#2337613)
It sounds like it has the same disadvantages as a gas turbine, then. It would have been helpful if they had contrasted it to a gas turbine instead of to a piston engine. Theoretically, a gas turbine has huge advantages over a normal ICE. Yet, there aren't any cars powered by gas turbines...
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Wave Disk Engine Could Be 3.5 Times More Efficient Than C... by rosser on Thursday March 17, 2011 @03:39PM (#2337693)
It's only a concept car, but Jaguar's C-X75 is twin gas-turbine charged and electrically powered.

http://blogs.insideline.com/straightline/2010/09/jaguar-c-x7...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Wave Disk Engine Could Be 3.5 Times More Efficient Than C... by eftpotrm on Thursday March 17, 2011 @04:25PM (#2337906)
That's significantly because turbines have vastly worse throttle response than reciprocating piston engines though.

This does look like nothing more than a new turbine design, I agree, but frankly a turbine driving a generator and a battery is by far the most energy efficient means of running a vehicle from a combustion fuel source anyway; that's been the case for years, and if this tech helps get us to that point then all the better.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Wave Disk Engine Could Be 3.5 Times More Efficient Than C... by frankus on Thursday March 17, 2011 @05:30PM (#2338203)
Gas turbines have by far the best power-to-weight ratio of anything short of a rocket motor. And large gas turbines can be extremely efficient.

But they're expensive and the efficiency advantage largely disappears as they're scaled down to a size appropriate to power a car.

Probably the fundamental reason we don't see production gas turbine cars is that there are cheaper and less technically risky ways to remove weight from a car, and weight savings often isn't even the cheapest way to improve efficiency.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Wave Disk Engine Could Be 3.5 Times More Efficient Than C... by tzs on Thursday March 17, 2011 @09:10PM (#2338889)
Chrysler experimented with gas turbine cars, to the point of consumer trials: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Turbine_Car
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Wave Disk Engine Could Be 3.5 Times More Efficient Than C... by wolever on Wednesday March 23, 2011 @10:02PM (#2362473)
Aren't any cars… But there is a motorcycle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTT_Turbine_Superbike
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Wave Disk Engine Could Be 3.5 Times More Efficient Than C... by gte910h on Thursday March 17, 2011 @03:38PM (#2337684)
They're not trying to redo the distribution of fuel over the US. That's the issue with anything like a turbine running on gas suffers.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Wave Disk Engine Could Be 3.5 Times More Efficient Than C... by joe_the_user on Thursday March 17, 2011 @04:38PM (#2337970)
There are gas-turbine powered buses:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DesignLine_Corporation

Sadly, they don't seem to have taken the market by storm even though they claim to double to fuel efficiency of a 40 ft bus. Unless fuel prices go up significantly, factors other than fuel efficiency will probably stand in their way (questions of reliability and supply chain are mentioned).

[ Parent | on HN ]