His reasoning is blown out of the window by the $41K price tag of the Volt.
See how this goes? There’s a reason why I focus on the price. It shows me that they’re not thinking through their market.
Yes, as he points out near the end of the video, the Otto cycle can be improved - by used of a much higher compression ratio. Oliver Tractor showed how the efficiency can be improved by taking the compression ratio up to 12.5:1. This isn’t anything new. The problem is that one needs an increasingly high octane rating on the fuel. For Oliver Tractor’s tests in the 50’s, they got a batch of WWII-style avgas (which was up around 129 or 130 octane) to show what can be done with high octane fuel and high compression ratios. The oil companies didn’t want to produce high octane fuel, and absent us all burning E-85, I don’t see how we’re going to obtain high octane fuel today.
The stratified charge/direct injection sounds like a nice idea, but guess what? When you do that, you’re quickly going to find you have a gas-burning diesel engine as far as price goes. You might not have the same emissions package (because the lighter fuel burns more completely), but the fuel rack will be like a diesel’s, the block will need to be heavier and more expensive, the crank and bearings will become more like a diesel, etc. Lutz is on the right track there, but again, his reasoning why they’re not doing a diesel based on price while he’s talking of these expensive issues sorta falls flat.
BTW — while Lutz has some points about the emissions standards, the truth is that other companies CAN and DO meet these diesel emissions standards. GM has screwed up diesels in cars forever - ever since they screwed up the Oldsmobile with the 350ci. GM’s pickup engine had to be designed by Izusu to get them back into the pickup truck market. Personally, I think GM has dropped the ball on non-Detroit diesels forever. Their 6.2L V-8 wasn’t much of an engine; the Izusu engine is OK, but nothing terribly earth-shattering like some of Cat or Cummin’s work.
As for California and the four moron states in the northeast: Screw ‘em. If the Californians want to regulate themselves back to walking everywhere in their Birkenstocks, let ‘em. The solution to California’s regulator mess is to simply write the market off - regardless of what the product is. California wants to regulate ammo? Don’t sell their LEO’s ammo. They want to regulate firearms? Don’t sell their LEO’s guns, either.
After awhile, they’ll cop a clue and get their heads out of their butts.