Nine new engines? -- six new transmissions? -- 60 new engines and transmissions?

I think Ed pointed out some interesting engine designs recently.
Soon heavy truck will be using engines with urea injection systems. That little, cough, change will drive up the price of heavy trucks a sizable bit more.
I'm pretty coy about who for and where I work. I need to keep working. But let me tell you, regulations on diesel emissons have a greater effect on our business than our currently crashing economy. Having your business go up and down depending on regulation changes, engine prebuys, and all that crap really puts a strain on everyone in the manufacturing sector.
This is driven by regulation. The makers are trying to eek out as much as they can.
This is driven by regulation. See above. GM likely too much. Ford, likely on their dime. I sure hope Ford has a econo box that gets good gas mileage that can tow 1000# by the time my Saturn SL1 dies. 192,000 and rusting. I'd really hate buying a Toyota or Kia. I'm only interested in transportation that gets me there relibily at low cost. Living in Michigan, that means it has to last 10 years before it rusts away. I envy those California and Arizona types. I could keep a car going for the rest of my life if the body didn't waste away.
Now let me pose a question. Considering the continously lowering of our standard of living, how much more regulation and additional cost, can we afford to support in our vehicle purchases?
Wes

Engineers design for the lowest cost. When fuel is expensive, one can spend more on the engine to increase economy. In this case Ford is going to direct injection and turbocharging. Both of these cost more money, but allow a smaller engine to be as powerful as a larger engine and use less fuel.
I suspect direct injection requires better microprocessors for the control. But the main driver is higher fuel costs, mean it is worthwhile to increase engine costs if it improves economy. Having a smaller engine will also mean less weight and that will also increase fuel economy.
There are some new materials as ceramics that allow higher operating temperatures. And that justifies new engine designs. However I did not see any mention of this in connection with the new Ford engines.
Congress has passed huge stimulas packages to encourage energy savings. Think of this as part of the stimulas package. It generates jobs for those that design engines and engine production lines. The new engines are more complex, so will have more labor costs associated with them. But probably will not generate a lot of new jobs for the production.
But the big follow on will be better fuel economy. Congress is trying to promote energy savings to lessen the dependence on imported oil. Increasing the fuel economy of cars and trucks will have as large an effect as increasing the number of solar panels to generate electric power.

There appear to be two parallel questions:
(1) The one you asked "how much more regulation and additional cost, can we afford to support..."
The problem here is that we can't tell because the cost:benefit data is unavailable, incomplete or hidden. I have significant suspicion that we have gone far beyond the point of diminishing returns in many areas and that many of the programs have taken on a life of their own, and/or the programs are acting as band-aids for more systemic problems such as the over concentration of people/industry in a few [very] small areas such as the LA basin and the isle of Manhattan that would be more logically addressed by other regulations.
and
(2) "how much more regulation and additional cost, will we tolerate."
FWIW -- it appears that many of the changes are due to some MBAs "wild hair" and have little to do with actual governmental regulation. One example is the proliferation of air and oil filters. In this particular case, a governmental regulation banning the introduction of new automotive oil and air filters and requiring the use of an existing filter [that could be upgraded to meet new requirements but must remain backward compatible, e.g. anti drainback valve] would result in a cost savings to the end user and a stabilization if not reduction in inventories.
Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).

As Ford enters 2010, it plans to aggressively pursue its goal to Official press release

IIRC Those cost about a billion dollars each.

As Ford enters 2010, it plans to aggressively pursue its goal to What a waste! Sure, new IC technology is cool but there are diminishing returns. The future is Electric! Imagine hundreds or thousands of nuke plants supplying cheap power. If the environmentalists and those telling them what to think and do had not destroyed the will of the US to forge ahead in all those related technologies, imagine where we would be.

By cutting fuel use and emissions. 8-)
Not new physics; new mechanics. Go to the SAE website and search on "direct injection," "stratified charge," and, for the medium-term, "HCCI" (homogeneous-charge, compression ignition"). Remember those model airplane "diesel" engines, which actually were carbureted, rather than injected, but which used compression ignition? Yep. They're the future.
It's a revolution that's making big improvements in fuel economy -- actually, about three of them in a row, if you include the new generation of turbo diesels, which combine several new ideas.
Those aren't the justifications. See above.
Probably more than a few.
As Ford enters 2010, it plans to aggressively pursue its goal to

I don't think the the enviromentalists, cough, understand cost vs benefit. The enviromentalists are the real party of no.
Wes

"Rick" wrote in news:TJednYBEHpmubtTWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
(1) How does introducing a new engine improve fuel economy/emissions?
The new Gasoline Direct Injected and Turbo Gasoline Direct Injected engines are a large leap in technology over current engines. Up to 20% more efficient with the power of a much larger more cylindered contemporary engine. In order to implement GDI or TGDI, a redesign of pretty much the entire engine is required.
This answers question #3, it's not new casting techniques (although some are required for the GDI/TGDI engines) or new materials.
With GDI/TGDI the cylinder loads are an order of magnitude larger than previous engines.
These engines are running 12:1 or higher compresssion ratios on 87 octane pump gas. This is possible because of the cooling effect of the charge as it enters the cylinder from the injector. As the (relatively) cool fuel enters the cylinder, it absorbs gobs of calories in order to vaporize. This prevents predenotation. This also creates several issues with internal components of the engine.
You also have an entirely different flow path required for the air entering the cylinder and a different path needed during the compression stroke. This requires a redesign of the combustion chamber and intake / exhaust tracts.
The key technology that allowed this revolution is the injectors. Until now, there was no injector capable of withstanding the environment and operating conditions inside of the cylinder of a gasoline engine. Now there are two companies (Bosch and Siemens) with proven, reliable injectors for direct placement inside the combustion cylinder. (Answer to question #2)
Your talking about stresses in the engine very akin to a diesel engine, but with much higher RPM's.
(2) What new principals of physics have been discovered that required new engine design?
(3) What new production techniques such as ultra thin wall casting or new materials have been developed that justify new engine designs?
(4) How much of this cost is the taxpayer going to pick up through corporate R&D deductions? As a follow-on, how many new jobs will be generated in the US to manufacture these new engines and transmissions?
Research has been ongoing on this for years, this is just the first mass introduction of the technology. These injectors and what not were developed in the motorsports (F1 for one) arenas over the last several years.
In the near future, you'll see 2.0L 4 cylinder engines with 225-300 hp with good low end torque and perfect driveability. They will include newer technlogies such as variable displacement turbochargers, variable cams on both intake and exhaust, very lightweight valves, internal cooling gallery pistons, servo controlled, extremely quick acting EGR and other technologies that will allow much improved economy and emissions from current tech.

Engineers design for the lowest cost. When fuel is expensive, one can spend more on the engine to increase economy. In this case Ford is going to direct injection and turbocharging. Both of these cost more money, but allow a smaller engine to be as powerful as a larger engine and use less fuel.
I suspect direct injection requires better microprocessors for the control. But the main driver is higher fuel costs, mean it is worthwhile to increase engine costs if it improves economy. Having a smaller engine will also mean less weight and that will also increase fuel economy.
Electronic engine control is going to replace mechanical control and improve over all performance, even in the small engine market. Freescale has a free video course on thier engine controllers :
Kinda neat to see whats coming down the pipe.
Best Regards Tom.

We'd be in France:

2L, 240HP

Thanks for the update. My burning question is, however, will this engine and the rest of the car make 250,000 miles if I take care of it?
Wes -- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

the rest of That's a good question. In the dirt bike world, I've always been a thumper fan, so was thrilled when not too many years ago, everyone got deadly serious about competitive 4 stroke race bikes. Well, they've largely gotten there, but only with loads of high tech and complexity. I've been out of the dirt bike game for years, but some friends have said that rebuilding a racing thumper is not for the ham fisted. Not to mention requiring many more, more expensive parts, than a 2 stroke.
250k miles? Only time will tell...
btw, I've been very impressed with my wife's Ford Sapphire over in Oz. While not a hot rod, it has oodles of torque. It takes a fair bit of concentration on my part to keep it under 110km/hr on the highway. Even on a decent grade, a few moments distraction and I've found myself up to 120-130. I took a peek under the hood, it's a monster straight 6 with fuel injection. I'd long wondered how a big straight 6 would work with FI, now I know. And I'll bet taken care of, that engine is good for several hundred thousand miles, easy.
Jon

ews: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com... Are we all going to stop driving while we wait for the new nukes to be designed, approved and built and waste disposal for said nukes to be designed, built and approved? Are we going to wait for Solar, wind and wave energy to get to maybe 20% of our energy requirements? I don't see a headlong rush into the massive spending needed for all of the above plus smart power grids. I think we will still be using Diesel power for trucks and gasoline for cars for a few more years yet. May as well make them a efficient as possible. Might still need a few diesels trucks for a while...at least to pick up the stranded electric vehicles on the side of the road with dead batterys:)

Quite possibly 300,000.
Every year the darn things get better - in many ways anyway.
GM? Lets hope we START to see improvements, as they've been building the 3.8 for how many decades and STILL have not solved their most glaring defects.

Are we all going to stop driving while we wait for the new nukes to be designed, approved and built and waste disposal for said nukes to be designed, built and approved? Are we going to wait for Solar, wind and wave energy to get to maybe 20% of our energy requirements? I don't see a headlong rush into the massive spending needed for all of the above plus smart power grids. I think we will still be using Diesel power for trucks and gasoline for cars for a few more years yet. May as well make them a efficient as possible. Might still need a few diesels trucks for a while...at least to pick up the stranded electric vehicles on the side of the road with dead batterys:) ******************************************************* And, for on-board IC generator for charging. But my point is that we should already HAVE these nuke plants! Look at how the French do nuke, they produce almost no waste.

Electric will only be the future for cars if we do several expensive things simultaneously. First, we have to seriously beef up the whole national electric grid, by a factor of 10 or more.
There are wide swaths of the Midwest where wind turbines would be very productive, and many rivers that could easily be harnessed for hydroelectric power - but there is no way to ship the energy to the east and west coasts where most of the demand is.
Then once we have the electricity supply available everywhere, we can electrify two or three lanes of the highways - the one big bugaboo with electric cars is range to empty. But if the car has an inductive pickup system to get power (and lane-tracking guidance) from the highway lane, you only need to run on the batteries for the local jaunts at each end of your trip.
Next step to freeing ourselves from foreign oil is to electrify all the freight railroads across the country, and they need the beefed up national power grid for that, too.
Heliostat solar power generation, but that has to be built in remote unpopulated valleys where people aren't staring at the big glowing boiler on top of the tower...
Then we find several suitable spots like a canyon off Lake Mead to build into a huge pumped-storage system, to store all that wind and solar energy when there is a surplus, and release it at night...
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