RX-8 Hydrogen RE a Dual Fuel Car 369
greekgod8591 writes "Japan's Mazda Motor Corp. said on Wednesday it will begin leasing a dual-fuel car that can run on both hydrogen and gasoline in the auto industry's latest effort to reduce oil consumption in vehicles. Mazda said the RX-8 Hydrogen RE, based on its popular RX-8 sports car, gets around these problems by running on gasoline in the absence of a hydrogen fuelling station, and using existing engine parts and production facilities to lower costs."
Currently worthless in North America (Score:5, Insightful)
And so, this is Mazda's PR machine cooking up hope where it'll be a decade or more before consumers will see something tangible on this side of the Pacific. Must be a dull news day.
Re:Currently worthless in North America (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Currently worthless in North America (Score:5, Funny)
Blame Canada*.
*I am Canadian. Don't implode.
Re:Currently worthless in North America (Score:2)
*I am Canadian."
Damn self hating Canuckistani people.
Re:Currently worthless in North America (Score:2)
Re:Currently worthless in North America (Score:2)
"Oh, it costs $3400 a month. And there are no stations."
The article says there are only 12 stations in all of Japan. And they are leasing it to a fuel producing company. This is NOT for normal people yet. The end of the article says that they are making plans to lease them to consumers, but that almost certainly means really rich consumers who want a fun little interesting car that is a toy/curiousity to them. They aren't aiming this at Joe Consumer yet. They aren't
Re:Currently worthless in North America (Score:3, Insightful)
If rich families really want to make an impact on the environment and show everyone they care, a better solution would be to trade in their mammoth SUVs and drive a compact car. There's no need for the fancy hybrid or hydrogen vehicle. Current cars using common
Re:Currently worthless in North America (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, corn would not be the only way to get hydrogen. Try electrolysis. Put a few solar panels on the roof, let that electricity seperate water into oxygen and hydrogen and collect in a tank. Inefficient - yes. But feasible. Want something more efficient? Use steam electrolysis (which is more efficient) by putting up a parabolic mirror and heating a core of water to the required temperature (2500 C) and splitting the molecules that way. Some obstacles to overcome - but no reason it needing acres of land when the acreage of a roof should suffice.
Sometimes the only way forward with this technology is to take a few steps back because it's more realistic to accept it won't be as good (convenient) as gas overnight. Gasoline had years of market acceptance to develop these advantages.
Re:Currently worthless in North America (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.theaircar.com/ [theaircar.com]
Re:Currently worthless in North America (Score:2)
Compressed air: 17 watt/hours per liter
Liquid Hydrogen: 2600 watt/hours per liter
For a 50l fuel tank (standard on my car), you get the equivalent of 12 liters of gasoline (in energy equivalent) from LH2, and the equivalent of a tenth of a liter from compressed air.
Re:Currently worthless in North America (Score:2)
Re:Currently worthless in North America (Score:3, Insightful)
Put the solar cells on the roof, and feed the power back into the grid, lowering your electric bills and your grid power consumption. Then buy a normal car. The grid will burn less coal, balancing out your auto emissions.
Re:Currently worthless in North America (Score:2)
Again, this is how you look at it. If you want to wean the country from oil - the car solution is a better step in that direction. Afterall, that electricity could also be from a Nuclear Power Plant, which is relatively clean. Especial
Re:Currently worthless in North America (Score:2)
Here in australia, I only know of people that buy a car outright or people who hire one one from somewhere like Hertz or Avis, not people getting cars on a "lease" basis (ditto with those GM electric cars from a while back)
Leasing happens all the time. (Score:2)
With specialty items like this leasing is a great way to get real world testing done and give people a taste of the vehicle, leasing also guarentees they get their shit back.
If GM's Australian arm (Holden) or the local Ford mob could put together a similar vehicle and release it in small numbers, leased to the public I'd
Re:What about electrolysis? (Score:2)
Re:What about electrolysis? (Score:2)
Re:What about electrolysis? (Score:2)
62 miles? (Score:2, Interesting)
"It can cruise for a maximum 62 miles on hydrogen and 549 km (341 miles) on gasoline..."
62 miles on hydrogen? I guess there isn't much room in an RX8 for hydrogen with a full tank of gas.
Only $3577 per month (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Only $3577 per month (Score:4, Insightful)
RX-8? (Score:2)
A weird choice to become dual fuel car.
Re:RX-8? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:RX-8? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:RX-8? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I think you misunderstand (Score:2)
Thirsty Wankels... (Score:4, Informative)
Hydrogen , whilst its a nice step forward isnt going to help much overall, and 62miles is ok if you live very close to where you fill up. As for 340miles out of the gas tank, forget it, most mine did was 275, typicaly 200-220.
Stunning cars though, balance, power and practicality, tho the Hydrogen cycle runs at 50% power and thats with a turbo.
mazda have had a demo/development duel fuel RX8 for a number of years.
Re:Thirsty Wankels... (Score:2)
That figures. On Mazda's Australian web site, it says that an RX-8 gets 12.2L/100km and has a 61-litre fuel tank. By those numbers, the furthest it could go would be 500km (310 miles), and you'd have to drive conservatively or spend a lot of your time on the highway to get that. Even then, that's working on the assumption that they didn't have to shrink the petrol tank to add the hydrogen system.
What about the sealing problems? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What about the sealing problems? (Score:2, Informative)
The wankel rotary is pretty good at using hydrogen, far better than a piston engine.
Oh and the seal problem was solved a long time ago, RX7's had an overheating problem on part of the apex seals made out of a rubber, that part is cast iron on the renesis in the RX8.
Re:What about the sealing problems? (Score:2)
Agree, however the 9500RPM isn't much different than the 9000RPM redline in many of the 13B RX7s.
But the new version of the Rotary is quite a bit more advanced than t
For more info from the experts.... (Score:5, Informative)
http://rx7club.com/ [rx7club.com]
http://fc3s.org/ [fc3s.org]
http://www.mazdatrix.com/ [mazdatrix.com]
http://rx7.org/ [rx7.org]
and if you live in or near Ohio:
http://www.ohiorotaries.com/ [ohiorotaries.com]
These are some of the better sites/forums maintained and populated with rotorheads.
Its a two way exchange too, if you know anything about multi-fuel or new fuel vehicles we would like to hear from you as well.
Re:For more info from the experts.... (Score:2)
Re:For more info from the experts.... (Score:2)
By god if there is a rotary gimmick my people need to know about it!!
62 miles on hydrogen?! (Score:2)
Can anyone give me a link to some technology on the horizon that shows that hydrogen is really an alternative to gasoline? How is the energy density problem going to be solved for hydrogen?
In the mean time, hydrocarbons are going to be the primary solution to propelling cars.
That's a tankage issue (Score:2)
This is similar to a propane, natural gas, or butane conversion, all of which have been available for years.
Re:That's a tankage issue (Score:2)
Re:That's a tankage issue (Score:2, Insightful)
Naysayers (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the thing, if someone doesn't start the ball rolling it never will start, so its great that Mazda has done this, perhaps it will be a failure, perhaps it will do better then they expected but mainly this is planting seeds.
The first company to bring out competitive alternative energy cars is going to be in an excellent market position, the only way to do this is to actually start bringing out the cars once they see what works and what doesn't they will be miles ahead of the competition.
Re:Naysayers (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose it is all about how a person looks at things. If their primary goal it to make a zero emission car, they are totally focused on hydrogen. If the goal is to stop pumping money to unsta
Re:Naysayers (Score:2)
Re:Naysayers (Score:3, Informative)
Does this mean you have to top up the oil at the same time as the fuel (or indeed, mix oil in with the fuel) as with a 2-stroke?
No, the rotary engine is planted firmly in four-stroke land. What the Mazda 13B does is inject a small amount of oil onto the apex seals of the rotors via a port on the inside of the rotor housing. It's really sort of a controlled drip instead of a squirt, so that when the seals go over the oil port, they literally "squeegee" the oil around the interior surfaces of the engine. T
a response from a naysayer (Score:2)
That's because people keep getting their hopes up about hydrogen power, and they shouldn't.
Hydrogen power pretty much is a waste of time and money because you lose net energy making it - that is, it costs more energy to make than you get from burning it. This is always going to be the case, whether
already dual fuel vehicles (Score:3, Informative)
Questions (Score:2, Insightful)
Do they realize that electricity (a.k.a. Fossil Fuels) must still be used to break apart the water?
Do they further realize that any compressed gas is a pain to transfer anywhere?
When will people realize that ethanol, until it can be produced in extremely massive quantities (30 gallons per vehicle per week, minimum ), is merely a short-term solution to a long-term problem?
Why are people nowdays programmed to think just like
Re:Questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Questions (Score:2)
Re:Questions (Score:2, Interesting)
Green people should really start pushing that angle. There are lots of people who don't care about the environment who do care about saving money (by choosing the cheapest energy source) and about not funding terrorists.
Re:Questions (Score:2)
Re:Questions (Score:2)
Do they realize that electricity (a.k.a. Fossil Fuels) must still be used to break apart the water?
Do they further realize that any compressed gas is a pain to transfer anywhere?
When will people realize that ethanol, until it can be produced in extremely massive quantities (30 gallons per vehicle per week, minimum ), is merely a short-term solution to a long-term problem?
Why are people nowdays programmed to think just like the media
Mazda is Ford (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mazda is Ford (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, you're right, Mazda is Ford. To be specific, Ford owns a controlling interest in them of approx 1/3. They use the same engines (Duratec/MZR 23 (I4), Duratec/MZR 30 (V6), though sometimes tuned differently),
same platforms: (CD3/etc (they use different names) is the Mazda6, Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan, Lincoln Zephyr)
the Euro Focus (not yet the American), Volvo S40, and Mazda3
That being said, the RX-8 does not s
Mazda isn't ford (Score:2)
The real issue with hydrogen (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The real issue with hydrogen (Score:2)
Lots of Misinformation here on Slashdot. (Score:5, Insightful)
The rotary has some big benefits and some notable acheivements:
Power-to-weight ratio is excellent. Minimal moving parts, no valve train and short eccentric shafts mean that vibration is very low, and this enables rotaries to rev very smoothly and at relatively high RPM (10,000+ RPM on a normally aspirated rotary in street trim is not difficult). Hot, high velocity exhausts make turbocharged rotaries capable of very high power levels.
The Mazda rotary has seen enormous success on the racetrack - Mazda is the only japanese manufacturer to win Le Mans, and the RX-7 has been extremely successful - winning more races outright than any other model in major US racing classes.
A 1.3L rotary engine is easily capable of producing 500bhp with a good turbocharger and fuelling setup, and the most powerful 13Bs used in drag racers produce up to 1000bhp in the extreme (it is true that a 1000bhp 13B will not last long).
the 2 litre (20B) engine was the torquiest production engine in a japanese car while the JC Cosmo was being made, and the boosted 20B in the worlds fastest rotary does the quarter mile in 6.9 seconds/202 mph with something approaching 1000 bhp.
The engine that powered the Le-Mans winning 787B in 1991 used a 2.6l 4-rotor normally aspirated engine with ceramic coatings, which produced about 700bhp, exhibited an almost perfectly flat power delivery curve over the entire race, and when disassembled at the end of the 24 hour race, showed practically no wear whatsoever.
Not only does the rotary produce excellent power for it's weight and displacement, it is also very reliable on a racetrack, or as an airplane engine.
On the downside:
Unfortunately heat/cooling cycles are the rotary's worst enemy, as the engine is constructed of a 'sandwich' of different metals, which tend to expand and contract at different rates. This leads to failure of coolant seals (letting water leak into the engine) - analogous to head gasket failure.
Apex seal breakage is the other major failure mode of the rotary, often due to detonation, or oil starvation.
Both of the major failure modes necessitate removal and rebuild of the engine block, which is labour-intensive and expensive.
Fuel efficiency is very difficult to maintain over a wide rev-range because of the shape of the rotary's combustion chamber, which is long and narrow, meaning it is difficult to get a smooth flame front and complete combustion, something piston engines (due to their 'closer to spherical' combustion chambers) have a natural advantage in.
Ceramic coatings and side-port designs such as used in the Renesis keep heat in the charge and insulate engine parts better, which provides cleaner burns and smoother combustion.
The Renesis (1.3l 2-rotor RX-8 engine) can burn hydrogen because it's side-ported intakes and exhausts (as opposed to the peripheral exhaust ports in production cars and the peripheral intake + exhaust in race engines) enable a complete separation between the intake, combustion and exhaust chambers, equivalent to zero valve overlap in a piston engine, while retaining the ability to rev high and without majorly impacting on flow.
This is more or less impossible with a conventional 2 or 4-stroke piston engine - any piston engine running hydrogen either needs a totally different and switchable cam profile which produces anemic performance, or is built to run on dedicated hydrogen fuel and is still a pretty poor performer.
The Renesis is an outright better hydrogen hybrid engine than anything anybody at any other car manufacturer can come up with, despite their much longer histories and enormous research budgets.
You can only go 62 miles on a tank of hydrogen in an RX-8, but how far can you go running hydrogen in any other vehicle? Not very.
Many people trash the rotary out of ignorance, but the truth is that it is the
Re:Lots of Misinformation here on Slashdot. (Score:2)
BMW has been building dual-fuel hydrogen cars for over 20 years. The early ones didn't have variable valve timing, although the new ones do,just like the rest of BMWs engines.
BMW has been leading the way for decades on HCE research.. the whole picture.. HCE deployment, fueling stations, nozzle/tank technology, etc etc.
I love the Rotary engine, but don't discount the othe
check the specs (Score:2)
Better solution: improved current engines. (Score:2)
Take for example the diesel engine. We all remember them as loudly clattering, smoky, smelly engines lacking in high-end power. However, thanks to the development of computer-con
Re: (Score:2)
Rotary engine is an excellent hydrogen engine (Score:3, Informative)
Wankel rotary engines are underutilized today because of the bad rep they got in the 70's. Their horsepower-to-weight ratio makes them an excellent performance engine for light vehicles (like the Rx7, portable generators, and airplanes). They tend to be weak on the torque side, however. [Performance piston engines often can built with 1-1 horsepower to torque ratios.]
The lightweight, simple, valve-less structure of rotary engines make them good candidates for alternative fuels. However, current rotary engine designs require injections of small amounts of oil to lubricate the apex seals. This oil is combusted with the fuel and expelled. [Typical oil consumption on a 13B engine is about 1/2 quart per 1500 miles.] Unfortunately, even when burning hydrogen, this tiny amount of burned hydrocarbons disqualifies the engine as a "zero emissions" vehicle - no research grants - no subsidies - no ZEV tax credits.
http://www.millville.org/Workshops_f/kess_mech/to
Re:Rotary (Score:2, Informative)
The RX-7 was very popular for a time, competing with Nissan's Z series.
The two cars were styled similarly.
Re:Rotary (Score:3, Informative)
Mazda has been the main user of the rotary engine for the past decade or so. Both their RX-7 (which ended it's lifespan in 1995, IIRC) and the current RX-8 are rotary engine designs.
From the reading car enthusiast forums that I frequent, both are seen as great cars, but have their share of oil leaks. Additionally, it's rather difficult to find a mechanic that is willing to work on rotary engines, so most cars are maintained by shade-tree mechanics.
Re:Rotary (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Rotary (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Apart from that and the one time the throttle got stuck wide open on a downhill, I really did like that car though. Had a nice amount of pickup and was a lot of fun to drive.
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Re:Rotary (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Rotary (Score:5, Informative)
From the reading car enthusiast forums that I frequent, both are seen as great cars, but have their share of oil leaks. Additionally, it's rather difficult to find a mechanic that is willing to work on rotary engines, so most cars are maintained by shade-tree mechanics.
The Oil leaks are not leaks, the nature of the lubrication system of the rotary design intentionally burns a small amount of oil during operation as a part of the lubrication process. However it is only like a 1/2qt every 3000-4000 miles.
The older RX3 and RX5 vehicles made by Mazda in the 70s DID have oil leaks, but this was due to a faulty seal design that was overcome with the 12A Rotory engine introduced in the new 1979 RX7. The engine's size was increased and refined again in 1985 with the GXL-SE RX7, and this engine, the 13B, then became the standard engine of the new body style that ran from 1986.
Mazada redesigned the RX7 again in 1992, and it still holds as one of the top sports cars ever produced, with under 5sec 0-60sec times, over 1g skipad, etc. However the engine in the 1992 RX7 Was the same basic 13B engine introduced in 1985, but with an improved twin turbo system, giving this simple engine amazing horsepower and the lower end torque to move.
The RX8 is a new revision to the Rotary engine, giving it more horsepower without the need for turbo. (However if the earlier Twin-Turbo was added to this engine, it would be in the ranks of the fastest cars ever made, a decision I think Mazda skipped on due to the market of the RX8(too much power for the average buyer); however, rumors of it or a new RX7 with twin-turbo are going around.
As for working on the rotary engine, it is out of ingornance if mechanics won't work on them, they are a very simple design, much simplier than the more complex piston based combustion engine.
The biggest failure in RX7s were the transmissions, as the rotary engine normally runs at a higher RPM than other engines, as it just keeps spinning and doesn't have to reverse direction. So a 9K redline is nothing, in fact many street racers and modders in the late 80s early 90s used RX7s in racing because the standard engine could still perform reasonably well in the 15,000-18,000 rpm range, it was the transmission to hold up to this amount of speed and power that was the trick.
Rotary engines are quite interesting and surprising that they have not caught on more in the market. They can be more fuel efficient, and emmissions are often better as the engine does a more complete burn process of the fuel. They are also surpsingly small, and lightweight. An average person can lift the engine. Which is kind of cool seeing a tiny engine that back in 1992 and 1993 was basically a 2 cylinder engine and could out perform even the Corvette ZR1 at the time.
The light weight nature of the engine and lack of vibration were also benefits to the performance of the car, as the engine could be mounted futher back in the car giving the car a 50/50 weight distribution for great cornering, and unlike other cars in its class, no vibration problems that other companies like Nissan were plaqued with when they tried to compete with their 6cylinder engines of the time.
Another footnote on the Mazda/Rotary engine is that in the racing circuit, Mazda for years has used a 3cylinder version of the rotary engine in its racing cars, and unline competitors like GM/Corvette, Porche, Ferrari, etc - the Mazda team uses the SAME engine throughout the racing season because of its high durability, where the other competitors usually replace engines between each race.
I am somewhat of a car enthusiast, and have owned all 3 variations of the RX7. I actually miss them, they were fast, nimble cars that were easy to do things well in them.
In contrast to the Corvettes and other performance cars I ha
Re:Rotary (Score:3, Informative)
"Just as the shape of the Wankel combustion chamber prevents preignition, it also leads to incomplete combustion of the air-fuel charge, with the remaining unburned hydrocarbons released into the exhaust."
"A related cause for unexpectedly poor fuel economy involves an inherent weakness of the Wankel rotor design when used with conventional fuels. Some studies have indicated that at high speeds, the rate at which the
Re:Rotary (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
See other posts ( one by me, in fact ) explaining.
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
radial engine, the differences being that the whole engine turned,
and the crankshaft was held fixed. That engine being called a
rotary. Different from the Wankel rotary engine.
A link [pilotfriend.com]
is worth a thousand words.
Apologies if you already knew this, but I cant
infer this from your post.
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
In short any Mazda with R in the designation has a rotory engine - for the last 20+ years this has been the RXn series of sports cars although there have been saloons in the 1970s IIRC.
One line description: smooth, quiet, one moving part but thirsty...
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Mazda has been using rotary engines for years, but only in the RX-8 (isn't that what it stands for? Rotary eXpirament 8?). They are a very interesting idea, and it's too bad we don't see more of them.
I have to wonder if the car has any other interesting features, like a Contin
Re:Rotary != Radial Sopwith engine apparently (Score:2)
That's a good question, and a good point as well. I think people like Cheney would rather people forget that a fuel switch was undertaken in the past, and can be agai
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Maybe the only rotary engines for mass produced cars, but definitely not the only mfg.
Off the top of my head, Rotax is a really big name in rotary engines today. They are used in everything from snowmobiles to ultra-light planes. People use Rotax engines on dune buggies, go-karts, & other light vehicles. Aprila (high end motorcycle mfg) also uses Rotax engines.
Rotary power is still alive and well in the world, even if Mazda dissappe
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Maybe that's the people I was thinking of.
or the RotaPower engine.
I coulda sworn Rotax made rotary engines though. I pulled all that stuff from Wikipedia
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Re:Rotary (Score:2, Informative)
As an owner of two Aprilia (a 2001 RSV Mille [charter.net] and a 1999 RS250 [charter.net]), I can tell you the Rotax built V990 (998cc 60deg V-Twin) in my RSV is not a Rotary engine. RS250 doesn't matter as it uses a Suzuki VJ22 (250cc 90deg two-stroke V-Twin) engine.
That said there are motorcycle that were built using rotary engines [millville.org].
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Weak, loud, and sluggish? I had an RX-7 Turbo in the early 90s, and I can assure you it was the opposite of all of those things.
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
As for loud, well that varies based on your exhaust and again if there's a turbo. Personally I love the sound of a wankel, so I wouldn't complain about them being loud, but I'm sure some would find them annoying.
Re:Rotary (Score:3, Informative)
In effect, the rest of the engine became the flywheel. Because it didn't need an external flywheel, these engines had better power to weight ratios, which is obviously
Radial != rotary (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
WWI era used an engine called a rotary engine. It is
not the same as the rotary used in this car, nor is it
quite the same as a radial aircraft engine, although
the differences where not all that large. The aircraft
rotary fastened the crankshaft to the aircraft, and the
propeller directly to the engine ( the propeller spun
with the engine ). In the radial, the cylinders stayed
still and the crankshaft rotated within, with the propeller
attached to it.
Why, yo
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
Just imagine the torque roll problem. Throttle response issues. Gyroscopic effect. Bearing loads.
The radial was a much better design. The two stroke radials (even number of cylinders) seem even better still...
GrpA
Re:Rotary (Score:2)
But it was a harder technical problem to solve.
And what throttle? IIRC, those engines where "on" with a "cut"
switch. Hence the characteristic noise they made.
Wasnt arguing any superiourity for the design,
just that is what they were using in those days. And yes, the
torque was a big issue. IIRC turns to the right were easy
and quick. Left was a bit more work. Tactically, that meant
that you could predict which direction an enemy plane would
"bre
Lots of walking (Score:2)
Re:Hydogen car? Already got one ... (Score:2)