Posted on 04/29/2016 10:51:22 AM PDT by DJ Taylor
Aquarius’s new take on internal combustion engines will be the big leap forward that vehicles need, says company founder.
The notoriously conservative car business – autos, after all, are still largely powered by the internal combustion engine, developed nearly 150 years ago – is in for big changes, according to Gal Fridman, chief marketing officer and co-founder of Aquarius Engines.
“Our enhanced engine design uses energy much more efficiently, and eliminates the valves and rods that cause energy loss,” he said. “If a car equipped with a modern standard internal combustion engine can go about 600 kilometers on a tank of gas, ours can more than double that.”
Founded in 2014 by Fridman, CTO Shaul Yaakoby and CEO Ariel Gorfung, Aquarius is the latest challenger to the hegemony of the internal combustion engine – the piston-driven machine that generates energy to turn wheels and open and close valves, providing the power that enables a several-ton hunk of steel, aluminum, and plastic to move.
Developed over a number of years in the mid-1800s, the internal combustion engine was first patented in 1860, and was in commercial production by the early 1900s.
“Over the years there have been incremental changes in IC engines, with the most recent innovation the development of the turbo engine, which uses air to pressure and power,” said Fridman. “But those have been very incremental, nothing like our take on engine technology in the Aquarius engine.”
Instead of the 4, 6, or 8 pistons that thrust up and down to turn the valves that move the wheels, the Aquarius engine features a horizontal-moving cylinder that generates energy to power two electric generators that power the car. The result is a much smaller engine without the thousands of complicated and hard-to-replace parts in standard engines; a small, efficient power-generating machine with fewer parts to wear out, and fewer parts to distribute energy to – meaning that there is less chance for the energy to dissipate, said Fridman.
“The Aquarius converts the piston’s movement into energy, which is immediately transferred to the electric generators instead of being dissipated to different components, like in standard IC engines. As a result, we can be twice as efficient, retaining double the energy and enabling drivers to travel as much as 1,300 kilometers on a single tank of gas, under ideal conditions. And the cars will not be more expensive than the ones currently on the market.”
More power and efficiency – and radically lower fuel costs – would no doubt be welcome by consumers. But would the industry – including the hundreds of thousands of garages, the tens of thousands of parts makers, the thousands of dealers, and the hundreds of manufacturers who are all part of the internal combustion ecosystem? And, according to Fridman, just setting up a new production facility for vehicles with slight variations on internal combustion engines could cost between $1 and $ 2 billion; how much would it cost to build a new infrastructure for an entire industry?
Many more billions, obviously – but according to Fridman, that will not be an impediment to the adoption of Aquarius engines. “If it were strictly up to industry, there might be some hesitation – but in this case, it is not up to industry, but to government, which has mandated a sharp drop in emissions for vehicles by 2020.”
That was my take, and I think it’s what the Fisker Karma uses for its technology. Very similar to diesel-electric.
You take an engine and optimize it for electrical generation, then everything in the car uses that electricity. Add regenerative braking and perhaps a capacitor similar to Mazda’s I-ELOOP technology to cover conditions where a surge of power is needed.
Wheels could be directly driven by electric motors, all computer controlled.
https://www.facebook.com/Aquarius-Motors-124458577653486/
http://www.aquariusengines.com/
Looks like it’s a little undercapitalized, there are pages for betting your hard-earned money though.
About 30 years ago, Smokey Yunick was developing his adiabatic engine, which would make even more sense now, given the strides in materials science since then.
What Ever Happened To Smokey’s Hot-Vapor Engine?
http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/engine/hrdp-1009-what-ever-happened-to-smokeys-hot-vapor-engine/
some more Smokey:
http://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/2014/04/29/another-look-at-smokey-yunicks-capsule-car/
http://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/2013/07/28/another-look-at-smokey-yunicks-reverse-torque-special/
True, except that automobiles need to accelerate relatively quickly, which means batteries, transmissions, or operating outside of max efficiency, or both.
I’m just saying that thing is BS. It looks like an xbox or something.
The arabs have also designed an ultra efficient car that runs on camel and goat dung
:’) This article sez diesel, maybe they did it twice?
Top Gear Builds a Volt of Its Own
http://www.wired.com/2009/11/top-gear-builds-a-volt-of-its-own/
Yuh, I think so.
Aquarius Energy Generation appears to be one venture of something else, called "The Value Makers," which is some sort of one-stop-shop venture capital/development incubator/intellectual property generator founded by Gal Fridman, the guy in the blue shirt sitting next to Maya the Cute MBA.
The closer I look, the more cynical I get.
I built an engine a few years back that used two weed eater cylinder / pistons on opposite ends, pushing a cylindrical magnet back and forth through a coil.
It was a two stroke of course. one piston would fire, driving the magnet (through a coil like one of those flashlights that you shake) and the other piston to the other end, where it would file and the process would continue...
It actually ran pretty good.
Electric cars day trip, part 1/2 (Series 17, Episode 6)
http://www.topgear.com/videos/jeremy-clarkson/electric-cars-day-trip-part-12-series-17-episode-6
Electric cars day trip, part 2/2 (Series 17, Episode 6)
http://www.topgear.com/videos/jeremy-clarkson/electric-cars-day-trip-part-22-series-17-episode-6
sidebar:
Tesla’s P85D is the best car Consumer Reports has ever tested
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/27/teslas-p85d-is-the-best-car-consumer-reports-has-ever-tested.html
That’s the EV in question. Diesel, gasoline, I remembered pretty good for me. That would have made it more efficient, both at fuel economy and noxious fumes. :)
Ah. Aquarius Motors is not located in Israel, it’s located in Durban, South Africa.
Hey, when ya ride with the Top Gear guys, there’s a particle of risk. ;’)
Must be the dawning of the age of the Fifth Dimension. ;’)
I can only imagine the waivers those guys have to sign.
The “Aquarius Engines” that you reference in your second link is located in Durban.
Aquarius Energy Generation, which is the subject of this discussion thread, is located in Israel.
It is a startup, having raised about $2.5M in a seed round against a $7.5M valuation. They have two major investors.
That’s along the lines of what I had envisioned.
Explanation is lousy. More information needed on how it works. Burns gasoline. Moves cylinder horizontally. (does it keep going indefinitely or does it move back?) how does horizontal movement turn generator? Generator powers battery? Generator powers electric engine?
How about an explanation that actually tells us how the engine works?
I've long thought that a good diesel electric drive would be great to use in automobiles. A good diesel will last pretty much forever. If the thing is running at optimal output all the time that it is on, it seems like it would be a real win. The big problem is conversion losses. Every time you convert energy from one form to another, you lose some. Thermodynamics simply won't allow anything else.
... and it still smells better than the arabs in the car!
Thanks.
Aquarius Engines - Energy Generation
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/aquarius-engines-energy-generation
Revving Up in Rosh Ha’ayin for the Age of Aquarius
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/.premium-1.696653
Looks like a high dollar one burner camp stove to me.
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