Boulder, Colorado - A new report from Colorado-based think tank Navigant Research says new and improved fuel-saving technologies will dominate motor vehicle development over the next three years.
More than that, it draws the conclusion that by the end of 2017 fewer than half the cars on the market will be powered by 'conventional gasoline engines' i.e. without some high-tech features designed specifically to reduce fuel consumption, even if it's just an idle-stop function, which Navigant seems to think is going to be the most important innovation in improving fuel efficiency.
While we disagree strongly with both the assumptions implicit in that conclusion - firstly that adding an idle-stop function makes an engine 'unconventional', and secondly that idle stop, by itself, is a significant step towards cleaning up our planet's atmosphere - it is true that multiple factors, including increasingly strict global standards to limit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, are driving manufacturers to produce more efficient vehicles.
Navigant expects the prevalence of alternative fuels - ethanol, petrol-ethanol blends, hydrogen, bio-diesel, liquid propane gas and battery power - to continue growing, but says petrol as we know it will remain the leading fuel in the coming years, at least in North America, albeit in smaller-engined, high-compression engines, often turbocharged.
Senior research analyst David Alexander commented: "There is no single technology that will dominate fuel efficiency improvements in the next decade.
"The focus, instead, will be on incremental improvements in engines and transmissions, along with weight reduction in as many places as possible."
ENERGY RECOVERY
Idle-stop technology, he predicted, would add functionality until it became a sort of mild hybrid, with the ability to capture and store energy without the weight (and cost) penalty of a big battery.
Whether that means using a capacitor to store electrical energy or a high-speed, dual-mass flywheel to store kinetic energy while the engine isn't running we don't know, and to be candid we don't think Alexander does either, but the inference is plain: the next big thing in automotive design is to waste less of the energy produced by burning hydrocarbon fuels to the atmosphere as heat.
Because every kilowatt that we recover and put back into the car's systems benefits us twice: it's another spoonful of fuel that doesn't need to be converted into carbon dioxide and another kilowatt of heat that's not adding to the problem of global warming.
Energy recovery is already the New Big Thing in Formula One, and Navigant expects sales of petrol and diesel vehicles fitted with sophisticated idle-stop technology to reach 63 million annually by 2025, representing 58 percent of all vehicles sold.
The report looks at the effect of consumer demand for more fuel-efficient vehicles, and political pressure to reduce emissions, on engine technology and lightweight materials.
Its global forecasts for vehicle sales, grouped by region, type of fuel and even the number of cylinders, are extrapolated through to 2025, along with forecasts for the sales volumes of important fuel-efficiency systems - and you have only to look at the world market for catalysers to know how significant that could be.
CLICK HERE TO READ A SUMMARY OF THE NAVIGANT RESEARCH REPORT.