14 ms·

Aquarius builds an engine others only dreamed of

88 points by rmason 6y ago

rmason 6y ago
Chuckled when I read they had a difficult time trying to talk with car companies. In Detroit 2020 isn't different than 1950 in one aspect: not big believers if not-invented-here. However if they can steal the idea like intermittent windshield wipers they'll adapt the idea, but not quickly.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  "Not invented here" isn't a big issue with automakers, unless you're talking about Tesla. Most automakers license core technology (i.e., engine, chassis designs, etc.) from other companies. Many of them license technology from their competitors or even co-develop their tech. The primary driver is cost. They couldn't care less who developed the tech if it saves them enough money (or brings in more money, if it's a saleable feature). Tesla is the only company that insists on reinventing everything from scratch, even at the cost of grossly overpaying.
  - cameronbrown 6y ago
    That's cause Telsa has the culture of Elon, similar to SpaceX. All their success derives from rethinking traditional automakers.
    - evgen 6y ago
      You are only supposed to drink the kool-aid, not marinate in it.
      - cameronbrown 6y ago
        You could also argue that they're getting better at building things from scratch by practicing with the mundane stuff. It's not a complete waste.
- ummonk 6y ago
  I doubt that's the issue here. The problem is that there are a lot of quacks in the space who don't know what they're doing, as well actual competent engineers where the design they're trying to perfect is a dead end. Extreme skepticism is generally wise - this engine just turned out to be the rare exception.
- hn_check 6y ago
  A more likely scenario is that it doesn't live up to the hype. There are literally hundreds of thousands of these "this changes everything" articles yearly, and this one seems no more believable than any other. The addition of Nokia's name makes it even more bizarre -- it's added to generate credibility, yet...Nokia? Remote power generation? As others have amply mentioned, being 2-stroke immediately disqualifies it from just about everything in many first world nations. In many areas you can't even power a lawnmower or chainsaws with such an engine. In no universe would it come anywhere where a car where emissions targets are very close to 0.
TYPE_FASTER 6y ago
Also check out Koenigsegg's Tiny Friendly Giant (TFG) 2l three cylinder twin turbo that makes 600hp and 443lbft of torque: https://www.koenigsegg.com/gemera/tiny-friendly-giant-engine/ https://www.koenigsegg.com/gemera/tiny-friendly-giant-engine... It is really cool to see these advancements happening in engine design.
- ReactiveJelly 6y ago
  I assumed most of the trick was that the car costs a million dollars or so. "The total output (of the hybrid system) is a combined 1700 bhp or 1.27 MW of power and 3500 Nm of torque." Is that torque at the wheel? If it's at the engine, who cares? It won't show up after the gears.
  - gregimba 6y ago
    That design uses a single gear instead a traditional transmission. https://www.koenigsegg.com/gemera/tiny-friendly-giant-engine/ https://www.koenigsegg.com/gemera/tiny-friendly-giant-engine...
gliese1337 6y ago
I am not particularly impressed with the prospects for vehicle range extension. All-electric seems like The Way To Go at this point. But improved efficiencies for a home backup generator seem like a potentially really great thing.
- aciswhat 6y ago
  Yeah generators are really the "killer app" for this
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    related work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-piston_linear_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-piston_linear_generator
- magic5227 6y ago
  Agree, even then hopefully better home battery storage removes the need for any fossil fuel based engine at all.
- mark-r 6y ago
  Wouldn't an electric car with an efficient generator under the hood be the best of both worlds? Totally eliminates the range problem.
aciswhat 6y ago
Hopefully they'll make it into automobiles some day.
NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago
If this was invented 20 years ago, it would be ok, but now with Tesla basically taking over the market not just with cars, but solar, insurance, SpaceX, communication, network of electric charging station, batteries ... Tesla is taking over not just one market but the entire market (pumps, wells, communication, transport, all...) Tesla is currently putting fear in bones of other car manufacturing companies, I think now they are on high alert/panic mode. We will see how all this pan out.
- LunaSea 6y ago
  That's what Tesla is known for but not the brands people know for these things. Most people haven't heard of Tesla for solar panels. In Europe most people don't know Tesla at all.
  - NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago
    I cannot agree about last Europe statement if we talk about 28 EU countries they are quite aware of Tesla. In Germany there is new Gigafactory and Norway has a massive explosion of Tesla cars on the roads. If you check the map https://www.tesla.com/nl_BE/supercharger?redirect=no https://www.tesla.com/nl_BE/supercharger?redirect=no you will see that network is already covering, entire Western Europe...
    - qayxc 6y ago
      Norway is special. Norway has no domestic car industry (not even major component suppliers) and about 100% (yes, you read that right) taxes on cars. Electric cars are exempt from tax in Norway, so it doesn't matter if you buy a $20,000 ICE or a $40,000 Tesla. In addition you don't have to pay toll, annual road tax, public parking fees,and may use bus lanes. So with all these incentives in place, it's no wonder Teslas sell like hot cakes in Norway (other EVs like Nissan Leaf and VW eGolf, too, by the way). Every other market than BEV is practically non-existent for Tesla in Europe. Even in the BEV market, Tesla is ranked 3rd (with the exception of Norway) in terms of market share - behind European and Asian brands. So unknown - no, dominating? Hell no!
DarmokJalad1701 6y ago
Could this be useful for medium to long-range aviation as an intermediate step before battery densities become more viable?
- KuiN 6y ago
  Medium to long range aviation doesn't use ICEs, so no probably not. Aviation gas turbines have had efficiencies >50% for a decade already anyway.
- blackrock 6y ago
  How would airplanes use a battery here? Are they going back to using an external propeller, that’s tied to an electric motor, and powered by the extra dense battery packs?
miahi 6y ago
It seems to generate quite a bit of vibration, even if you couple two of them in an alternating way you just change the vibration from parallel to the pistons to perpendicular to the pistons. It's not as easy to balance as a rotary engine.
- jeffreyrogers 6y ago
  It's not for vehicles though. It's for power generation. I guess you could use it in a vehicle, but I think it's intended for stationary use.
PEJOE 6y ago
Does anyone have any thoughts on how you extract the mechanical energy from a two sided piston?
- mannykannot 6y ago
  There are some double-acting diesels used for marine propulsion, and, as in the double-acting pistons of steam locomotives, a conventional crank mechanism, with the connecting rod connected to the piston rod outside of the cylinder, is used. Here, however, it seems they extract electrical energy by moving a magnet back and forth in a coil. https://www.instructables.com/id/Shake-Flashlight-1/ https://www.instructables.com/id/Shake-Flashlight-1/
- nanomonkey 6y ago
  In this configuration you aren't extracting the mechanical energy, instead it's being converted into alternating current through a linear solenoid coil. The energy leaves as electricity.
  - PEJOE 6y ago
    Thank you!
beambot 6y ago
34% efficiency on their first tests? That would be a huge deal. Microturbines have similar benefits (few moving parts, long lifetime, etc), but they only realize 30% efficiency on the high end.
- userbinator 6y ago
  34% is not that impressive... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-specific_fuel_consumption#Examples_of_values_of_BSFC_for_shaft_engines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-specific_fuel_consumptio... Gas turbines and 2-stroke diesels can have over 50% efficiency.
laurencerowe 6y ago
I wonder how clean burning this engine is. Normal 2-stroke engines burn oil along with gasoline so emit many more particulates than 4-stroke engines, but this seems to require less oil than a 4-stroke.
hristov 6y ago
They did not talk about oil and how it lubricates itself. Only that it magically does not need oil changes. It is a two stroke engine and two stroke engines do not need oil changes, but that is for a very bad reason, environmentally-wise. Two stroke engines do need oil changes because you are supposed to mix in the oil with the fuel and they just burn the oil and get new oil when new fuel comes in. This is very bad for the environment because burning lubricant is very bad for pollution. It is also costly because you have to pay for much more lubricant. Perhaps Nokia figured out that it would be much cheaper for them to burn oil rather than occasionally send people to remote locations to service engines. This may be true but they should not pretend this is environmentally friendly. It isn't. If you are older you may remember how gross and foul smelling two stroke lawn mowers used to be back in the times. We don't need to bring this back.
- userbinator 6y ago
  Not all two-strokes have "total loss" lubrication --- only crankcase-scavenged ones do. Larger ones, and notably two-stroke diesels, don't. That said, this one may need minimal lubrication since in a free-piston generator, both ends are combustion chambers, the only place there is sliding friction is between the cylinder wall and the piston, and the "secret" to their success may be some sort of ultra-hard-wearing material for those surfaces.
  - petra 6y ago
    Another possibility is using a magnetic bearing, i.e. using magnetic forces to hold the shaft without touching the cylinder.
- mannykannot 6y ago
  I was also wondering about this claimed lack of oil from a different perspective. Based on the article, the video embedded within it, and the Technology section of Aquarius' website, this is a double-acting uniflow two-stroke internal combustion engine. As it is double-acting, there is combustion on both sides of the piston, so I am wondering how the piston is cooled, especially given the high power density of this device. In conventional IC piston engines, the piston is either cooled by the oil [1], or, in the case of small two strokes having a total-loss lubrication system (the sort that the parent post is concerned with) piston cooling is aided by the flow of the incoming mixture through the crankcase. Neither method seems to be feasible here. Has there been a breakthrough in materials (ceramics, perhaps?) which allow for a piston to work at high temperatures? One other point that just occurred to me is that if you are using a total-loss, combustible lubricant design (which is what conventional gasoline two-strokes do), then the efficiency calculation must include the energy input of the lubricant as well as the gasoline (or whatever is being used purely as a fuel), as the lubricant is also a fuel. [1] https://dieselnet.com/tech/combustion_piston-cool.php https://dieselnet.com/tech/combustion_piston-cool.php
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dang 6y ago
Anybody care to suggest an accurate and neutral title, so we can replace the baity one?
DennisP 6y ago
Archive for those with ad blockers: http://archive.is/R7VlA http://archive.is/R7VlA
Animats 6y ago
There are about 15 free-piston generator projects. Toyota had a prototype in 2014.[1] Here's one from the UK in 2016.[2] It's a more reasonable idea today because switching power supplies are so good. You're going to get variable-frequency AC out of the thing, but converting that to something more useful is easy today. Also, using the generator windings to start the engine is easier with current power semiconductors. You have to have electrical control on all the valves. There's no camshaft and no place for one. Electrical control of engine valves has been a dream for a long time, but the actuators were a problem. Someone finally built a working engine in 2018 with total software control of all valves.[3] The valve people say "Electromechanically, you could look at it and ask 'why didn't you do that 20 years ago? The difference is in the electronics that control it. What's happened in the recent past is that there's now sufficient processing bandwidth at a low price that can tolerate top of engine conditions, so you can actually put real time control on top of these motors." This will probably all work commercially about the time everybody switches to electric cars. The parent article is lacking in solid "why ours is better than the other people who already did this" information. [1] https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a6326/out-of-turn-toyota-engine/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a6326/out-of-turn-t... [2] https://youtu.be/u4b0_6byuFU https://youtu.be/u4b0_6byuFU [3] https://newatlas.com/camcon-digital-iva-valve-system/55827/ https://newatlas.com/camcon-digital-iva-valve-system/55827/
- jdc 6y ago
  According to Konigsegg they have a camless valve control system ready to go. They plan to sell 300 such engines in their new Gemera grand touring car this year.
- rasz 6y ago
  >"The difference is in the electronics that control it. What's happened in the recent past is that there's now sufficient processing bandwidth at a low price that can tolerate top of engine conditions, so you can actually put real time control on top of these motors." is something a non EE person would say about another branch of science he is totally unfamiliar with. We had 40GB consumer Hard drives 20 years ago. 20GB per platter, 7200 RPM. Now think for a second what precision of timing you need in a hard drive versus mechanical engine. We are talking ~50 nm/bit, ~250 nm/track, ~100K TPI, >500Mbit internal transfer. The level of precision required to control engine valves more accurately than mechanical means (cams) was achieved in consumer off the shelf ~$200 hard drive controllers around 1995.
LockAndLol 6y ago
I know it's great that engine efficiency is getting better, but this is still working using old, crude principles. Combustion engines are the equivalent of analog in computing and engine makers still need to reach their digital "Eureka!" moment. The gas turbine is [226 years old][0]! Computing on the other hand has seen significant change from [Charle Babbabe's mechanical computer][1], to vacuum tubes, transistors and (hopefully within the next 50 years) quantum computers. Hopefully with progress in batteries and clean energy generation, we'll see the death of the great polluters before the end of the century. We can (and should) do better. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#His... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer#First_computing_device https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer#First_computing_devic...

88 points by rmason 6y ago

Chuckled when I read they had a difficult time trying to talk with car companies. In Detroit 2020 isn't different than 1950 in one aspect: not big believers if not-invented-here. However if they can steal the idea like intermittent windshield wipers they'll adapt the idea, but not quickly.

gamblor956 6y ago
"Not invented here" isn't a big issue with automakers, unless you're talking about Tesla. Most automakers license core technology (i.e., engine, chassis designs, etc.) from other companies. Many of them license technology from their competitors or even co-develop their tech. The primary driver is cost. They couldn't care less who developed the tech if it saves them enough money (or brings in more money, if it's a saleable feature). Tesla is the only company that insists on reinventing everything from scratch, even at the cost of grossly overpaying.
- cameronbrown 6y ago
  That's cause Telsa has the culture of Elon, similar to SpaceX. All their success derives from rethinking traditional automakers.
  - evgen 6y ago
    You are only supposed to drink the kool-aid, not marinate in it.
    - cameronbrown 6y ago
      You could also argue that they're getting better at building things from scratch by practicing with the mundane stuff. It's not a complete waste.
ummonk 6y ago
I doubt that's the issue here. The problem is that there are a lot of quacks in the space who don't know what they're doing, as well actual competent engineers where the design they're trying to perfect is a dead end. Extreme skepticism is generally wise - this engine just turned out to be the rare exception.
hn_check 6y ago
A more likely scenario is that it doesn't live up to the hype. There are literally hundreds of thousands of these "this changes everything" articles yearly, and this one seems no more believable than any other. The addition of Nokia's name makes it even more bizarre -- it's added to generate credibility, yet...Nokia? Remote power generation? As others have amply mentioned, being 2-stroke immediately disqualifies it from just about everything in many first world nations. In many areas you can't even power a lawnmower or chainsaws with such an engine. In no universe would it come anywhere where a car where emissions targets are very close to 0.

TYPE_FASTER 6y ago

Also check out Koenigsegg's Tiny Friendly Giant (TFG) 2l three cylinder twin turbo that makes 600hp and 443lbft of torque: https://www.koenigsegg.com/gemera/tiny-friendly-giant-engine/ https://www.koenigsegg.com/gemera/tiny-friendly-giant-engine... It is really cool to see these advancements happening in engine design.

ReactiveJelly 6y ago
I assumed most of the trick was that the car costs a million dollars or so. "The total output (of the hybrid system) is a combined 1700 bhp or 1.27 MW of power and 3500 Nm of torque." Is that torque at the wheel? If it's at the engine, who cares? It won't show up after the gears.
- gregimba 6y ago
  That design uses a single gear instead a traditional transmission. https://www.koenigsegg.com/gemera/tiny-friendly-giant-engine/ https://www.koenigsegg.com/gemera/tiny-friendly-giant-engine...

gliese1337 6y ago

I am not particularly impressed with the prospects for vehicle range extension. All-electric seems like The Way To Go at this point. But improved efficiencies for a home backup generator seem like a potentially really great thing.

aciswhat 6y ago
Yeah generators are really the "killer app" for this
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  related work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-piston_linear_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-piston_linear_generator
magic5227 6y ago
Agree, even then hopefully better home battery storage removes the need for any fossil fuel based engine at all.
mark-r 6y ago
Wouldn't an electric car with an efficient generator under the hood be the best of both worlds? Totally eliminates the range problem.

aciswhat 6y ago

Hopefully they'll make it into automobiles some day.

NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago

If this was invented 20 years ago, it would be ok, but now with Tesla basically taking over the market not just with cars, but solar, insurance, SpaceX, communication, network of electric charging station, batteries ... Tesla is taking over not just one market but the entire market (pumps, wells, communication, transport, all...) Tesla is currently putting fear in bones of other car manufacturing companies, I think now they are on high alert/panic mode. We will see how all this pan out.

LunaSea 6y ago
That's what Tesla is known for but not the brands people know for these things. Most people haven't heard of Tesla for solar panels. In Europe most people don't know Tesla at all.
- NiceWayToDoIT 6y ago
  I cannot agree about last Europe statement if we talk about 28 EU countries they are quite aware of Tesla. In Germany there is new Gigafactory and Norway has a massive explosion of Tesla cars on the roads. If you check the map https://www.tesla.com/nl_BE/supercharger?redirect=no https://www.tesla.com/nl_BE/supercharger?redirect=no you will see that network is already covering, entire Western Europe...
  - qayxc 6y ago
    Norway is special. Norway has no domestic car industry (not even major component suppliers) and about 100% (yes, you read that right) taxes on cars. Electric cars are exempt from tax in Norway, so it doesn't matter if you buy a $20,000 ICE or a $40,000 Tesla. In addition you don't have to pay toll, annual road tax, public parking fees,and may use bus lanes. So with all these incentives in place, it's no wonder Teslas sell like hot cakes in Norway (other EVs like Nissan Leaf and VW eGolf, too, by the way). Every other market than BEV is practically non-existent for Tesla in Europe. Even in the BEV market, Tesla is ranked 3rd (with the exception of Norway) in terms of market share - behind European and Asian brands. So unknown - no, dominating? Hell no!

DarmokJalad1701 6y ago

Could this be useful for medium to long-range aviation as an intermediate step before battery densities become more viable?

KuiN 6y ago
Medium to long range aviation doesn't use ICEs, so no probably not. Aviation gas turbines have had efficiencies >50% for a decade already anyway.
blackrock 6y ago
How would airplanes use a battery here? Are they going back to using an external propeller, that’s tied to an electric motor, and powered by the extra dense battery packs?

miahi 6y ago

It seems to generate quite a bit of vibration, even if you couple two of them in an alternating way you just change the vibration from parallel to the pistons to perpendicular to the pistons. It's not as easy to balance as a rotary engine.

jeffreyrogers 6y ago
It's not for vehicles though. It's for power generation. I guess you could use it in a vehicle, but I think it's intended for stationary use.

PEJOE 6y ago

Does anyone have any thoughts on how you extract the mechanical energy from a two sided piston?

mannykannot 6y ago
There are some double-acting diesels used for marine propulsion, and, as in the double-acting pistons of steam locomotives, a conventional crank mechanism, with the connecting rod connected to the piston rod outside of the cylinder, is used. Here, however, it seems they extract electrical energy by moving a magnet back and forth in a coil. https://www.instructables.com/id/Shake-Flashlight-1/ https://www.instructables.com/id/Shake-Flashlight-1/
nanomonkey 6y ago
In this configuration you aren't extracting the mechanical energy, instead it's being converted into alternating current through a linear solenoid coil. The energy leaves as electricity.
- PEJOE 6y ago
  Thank you!

beambot 6y ago

34% efficiency on their first tests? That would be a huge deal. Microturbines have similar benefits (few moving parts, long lifetime, etc), but they only realize 30% efficiency on the high end.

userbinator 6y ago
34% is not that impressive... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-specific_fuel_consumption#Examples_of_values_of_BSFC_for_shaft_engines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-specific_fuel_consumptio... Gas turbines and 2-stroke diesels can have over 50% efficiency.

laurencerowe 6y ago

I wonder how clean burning this engine is. Normal 2-stroke engines burn oil along with gasoline so emit many more particulates than 4-stroke engines, but this seems to require less oil than a 4-stroke.

hristov 6y ago

They did not talk about oil and how it lubricates itself. Only that it magically does not need oil changes. It is a two stroke engine and two stroke engines do not need oil changes, but that is for a very bad reason, environmentally-wise. Two stroke engines do need oil changes because you are supposed to mix in the oil with the fuel and they just burn the oil and get new oil when new fuel comes in. This is very bad for the environment because burning lubricant is very bad for pollution. It is also costly because you have to pay for much more lubricant. Perhaps Nokia figured out that it would be much cheaper for them to burn oil rather than occasionally send people to remote locations to service engines. This may be true but they should not pretend this is environmentally friendly. It isn't. If you are older you may remember how gross and foul smelling two stroke lawn mowers used to be back in the times. We don't need to bring this back.

userbinator 6y ago
Not all two-strokes have "total loss" lubrication --- only crankcase-scavenged ones do. Larger ones, and notably two-stroke diesels, don't. That said, this one may need minimal lubrication since in a free-piston generator, both ends are combustion chambers, the only place there is sliding friction is between the cylinder wall and the piston, and the "secret" to their success may be some sort of ultra-hard-wearing material for those surfaces.
- petra 6y ago
  Another possibility is using a magnetic bearing, i.e. using magnetic forces to hold the shaft without touching the cylinder.
mannykannot 6y ago
I was also wondering about this claimed lack of oil from a different perspective. Based on the article, the video embedded within it, and the Technology section of Aquarius' website, this is a double-acting uniflow two-stroke internal combustion engine. As it is double-acting, there is combustion on both sides of the piston, so I am wondering how the piston is cooled, especially given the high power density of this device. In conventional IC piston engines, the piston is either cooled by the oil [1], or, in the case of small two strokes having a total-loss lubrication system (the sort that the parent post is concerned with) piston cooling is aided by the flow of the incoming mixture through the crankcase. Neither method seems to be feasible here. Has there been a breakthrough in materials (ceramics, perhaps?) which allow for a piston to work at high temperatures? One other point that just occurred to me is that if you are using a total-loss, combustible lubricant design (which is what conventional gasoline two-strokes do), then the efficiency calculation must include the energy input of the lubricant as well as the gasoline (or whatever is being used purely as a fuel), as the lubricant is also a fuel. [1] https://dieselnet.com/tech/combustion_piston-cool.php https://dieselnet.com/tech/combustion_piston-cool.php

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dang 6y ago

Anybody care to suggest an accurate and neutral title, so we can replace the baity one?

DennisP 6y ago

Archive for those with ad blockers: http://archive.is/R7VlA http://archive.is/R7VlA

Animats 6y ago

There are about 15 free-piston generator projects. Toyota had a prototype in 2014.[1] Here's one from the UK in 2016.[2] It's a more reasonable idea today because switching power supplies are so good. You're going to get variable-frequency AC out of the thing, but converting that to something more useful is easy today. Also, using the generator windings to start the engine is easier with current power semiconductors. You have to have electrical control on all the valves. There's no camshaft and no place for one. Electrical control of engine valves has been a dream for a long time, but the actuators were a problem. Someone finally built a working engine in 2018 with total software control of all valves.[3] The valve people say "Electromechanically, you could look at it and ask 'why didn't you do that 20 years ago? The difference is in the electronics that control it. What's happened in the recent past is that there's now sufficient processing bandwidth at a low price that can tolerate top of engine conditions, so you can actually put real time control on top of these motors." This will probably all work commercially about the time everybody switches to electric cars. The parent article is lacking in solid "why ours is better than the other people who already did this" information. [1] https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a6326/out-of-turn-toyota-engine/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a6326/out-of-turn-t... [2] https://youtu.be/u4b0_6byuFU https://youtu.be/u4b0_6byuFU [3] https://newatlas.com/camcon-digital-iva-valve-system/55827/ https://newatlas.com/camcon-digital-iva-valve-system/55827/

jdc 6y ago
According to Konigsegg they have a camless valve control system ready to go. They plan to sell 300 such engines in their new Gemera grand touring car this year.
rasz 6y ago
>"The difference is in the electronics that control it. What's happened in the recent past is that there's now sufficient processing bandwidth at a low price that can tolerate top of engine conditions, so you can actually put real time control on top of these motors." is something a non EE person would say about another branch of science he is totally unfamiliar with. We had 40GB consumer Hard drives 20 years ago. 20GB per platter, 7200 RPM. Now think for a second what precision of timing you need in a hard drive versus mechanical engine. We are talking ~50 nm/bit, ~250 nm/track, ~100K TPI, >500Mbit internal transfer. The level of precision required to control engine valves more accurately than mechanical means (cams) was achieved in consumer off the shelf ~$200 hard drive controllers around 1995.

LockAndLol 6y ago

I know it's great that engine efficiency is getting better, but this is still working using old, crude principles. Combustion engines are the equivalent of analog in computing and engine makers still need to reach their digital "Eureka!" moment. The gas turbine is [226 years old][0]! Computing on the other hand has seen significant change from [Charle Babbabe's mechanical computer][1], to vacuum tubes, transistors and (hopefully within the next 50 years) quantum computers. Hopefully with progress in batteries and clean energy generation, we'll see the death of the great polluters before the end of the century. We can (and should) do better. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#His... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer#First_computing_device https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer#First_computing_devic...