Engineering our Engines
The word Engineering
is derived from the Latin words meaning to ‘generate’ (ideas, products) through
‘cleverness’. It is truly cleverness along with presence of mind that helped Isaac
Newton discover the presence of this force of gravity that keeps us all
grounded. It is Newton’s acute presence of mind and his dire desire to make
calculations relatively easy through ‘Calculus’ that has helped humanity
understand the requirement of propulsion to overcome gravity and thus we “fly”.
Like him the list of people that have contributed to the human technological
advancement is long and we have a great deal to be grateful.
But all the
revolution in technology did not happen single handily through the minds and
hands of scientists and theoretical physicists. We also needed engineers and
skilled labour. The greatest among all the engineers that we may have ever
known is Nikola Tesla, whose revolutionary work in the field of
Electromagnetism has limitlessly expanded on the ideas carved by Faraday,
Maxwell and Bohr. But before we could access our vehicle through our mobile
phones to recharge those batteries and enjoy the dream of autonomously driven
vehicles, we had to first learn about propulsion. And long before we understood
that electricity can easily power anything and everything, inspired minds found
that boiling water could propel a neat assembly of gears and shafts to bring
ease to the human effort.
Development of the
Internal Combustion Engine
The first steam
engine was designed and built by Thomas Savery in 1698 to raise water from
mines through suction produced by condensing steam. Thomas Newcomen improved
the efficiency of this idea by adding a piston that would separate the water
from the condensing steam. One improvement over the idea led to many eager and
curious minds to try to better the system. Between 1763 to 1775 James Watt designed
a better engine with the help of Matthew Boulton. They patented their design
under the name Watt-Boulton and he never stopped making further improvements on
it. Inspired by their work, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot created the first steam
powered carriage that was capable of transporting humans in 1768. Inventors continued
to take cues from each other’s improvements. The de Rivas Engine developed by the
Franco-Swiss inventor Isaac de Rivas in 1804, was developed as a pioneering
reciprocating engine using hydrogen gas as fuel ignited by a spark ignition.
This is acclaimed as the first IC engine. Samuel Brown also tested his Gas Vacuum
engine in 1827 using hydrogen as fuel. He also used “water gas” which is a
mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide obtained by passing water over
white-hot coke. However, the problem of
disposing precipitate clubbed with high costs made his ideas unpopular. And within
a few years, Internal combustion Engines that compressed gas mixed with air promised
viability and feasibility, thus gaining popularity among investors.
William Murdoch built
a working model of the steam engine carriage in 1784 and demonstrated his idea
to Richard Trevithick in 1794. However, while all these steam engines were
mainly used to pump and deliver water in various mines and industries, it was only
in 1802 that Richard Trevithick used a high-powered steam engine to build the
first coal burning locomotive engine in the United Kingdom and then was born
the railways.
A trial by Alcohol
In 1826, Samuel
Morey used alcohol in his first American Vapour Internal Combustion Engine
prototype. His idea was revolutionary since the demand and production of alcohol
for beverages, lanterns and farming was huge. But the cost of the American
Civil War was crippling the exchequer. US lawmakers led by Abe Lincoln saw the
opportunity to raise funds for governance by taxing alcohol in 1862. This huge
taxation imposed on alcohol made Samuel Morey’s idea expensive and most
investors seemed uninterested in a highly taxed vapor engine considering the
success of the gasoline engine. The first push to popularize his work was done
by Charles Duryea in America, but the tax regime still took away its thunder. In 1860, German inventor Nicolaus
Otto uses ethyl alcohol as a fuel in an early internal combustion engine
and by the 1890s, alcohol-fuelled engines began to be used in farm
machinery in Europe, making countries more fuel independent. Research at
the Experimental Mechanical Laboratory of Paris and at
the Deutsche Landwirtschaftliche Gesellschaft in Berlin in the 1890s
helped pave the way for the expanded use of alcohol fuel. In 1908, when the Ford Model T was
introduced, the early models had adjustable carburettors to run on ethanol with
gasoline as an option. In 1973, the Arab oil
embargo created a worldwide energy crisis, leading to intensified search
for alternative energy sources. Also, in the same year, the government of
Brazil started the program "Pró-Álcool" in order to substitute gasoline
powered vehicles in favour of automobiles powered by ethanol. Such program
would lead to the development of the first ethanol powered automobile motor in
the world.
Internal Combustion Engines dominate globally
But the inspiration
to invent did not stop there. Production of early vehicles began appearing when
Karl Benz patented a gasoline powered IC Engine in 1880. His work to develop a
horseless carriage thus patented the first Motorwagen running on a gasoline powered
IC engine and rolled out his automobile in Mannheim in 1886. Meanwhile Rudolf
Diesel developed three prototypes of his engine using gasoline as fuel between
1878 and 1898 obtaining patents in major countries around Europe. In 1899, the first two-stroke diesel engine, invented by Hugo
Guldner was built. In 1905 fuel injection systems, intercoolers and
turbochargers were introduced into the engine and in 1912 the
first locomotive with a diesel engine was used on the
Swiss Winterthur-Romanshorn railroad. In 1929, the first passenger car
with a diesel engine appeared. Its engine is an Otto engine modified to use the
diesel principle and Bosch's injection pump.
Across the Atlantic, a
young man tested his own motor engine using gasoline as fuel at the end of
December in 1893. He ignited the fuel in his engine using a wire from a bulb
socket. His name was Henry Ford. The first automobile he developed was a
Quadricycle that was completed in 1896. Many other investors began investing
into building automobiles for racing separately in Europe and the USA. One such
Company in USA known as the Henry Ford Motor Company was taken over by Cadillac
Motor Company in 1902. In 1903 Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company with
twelve other investors ultimately taking over its entire control only in 1919. Even
though, Ford Motor Company began to roll out its automobiles that ran on
internal combustion engines right from inception in 1903, it was only in
October of 1908 that the very first Ford Model T rolled from their Detroit
plant.
Defying the dominance of gasoline and
Diesel
In
the 1930s countries with a low supply of oil like England, France and Germany
began experimenting with alternative fuels in search of alternatives to fuel
their growing car fleets. Ultimately striving for self-reliance, no option was
to be left untested. Among others, experiments were conducted with natural gas
and LPG better known as Autogas. The first mention of propane and butane
mixture comes from as early as 1910. It was then that Walter O. Snelling, an American chemist researching
properties of petrol, separated gaseous fractions from liquid ones, thus
discovering the existence of propane. Two years later, in 1912, he started his
first domestic propane installation, and in 1913 he patented producing propane
on an industrial scale. Information concerning practical use of LPG dates to
1918, when the fuel was utilised
for brazing lamps and metal-cutting blowtorches until it was
first used as fuel in a motor truck in 1928. LPG first appeared in Europe when
it was imported from the USA and introduced in France in mid-1930's.
In
1934 Germany kicked off a programme to increase independence from expensive and
depleting oil imports. The following year in 1935 several alternatively fuelled
vehicles were presented at the international automobile fair in Berlin. LPG had
been discovered in Germany only a few years earlier as a condensate when
compressing refinery off-gas to extract gasoil. It was being sold in cylinders
as propane and butane or as a less refined mixture of both components. By 1942
the supply of LPG was plentiful as aviation grade and other liquid fuels were
being synthesized and co-synthesized from lignite.
The
use of Natural Gas (methane) for vehicles also started in the 1930s and has
continued off and on until today. Since 2008 there have been a large market
expansion for natural gas vehicles (CNG and LPG) caused by the rise of petrol/
gasoline/ diesel prices and by the need to reduce air pollution emissions. A natural
gas vehicle (NGV) is also an alternative fuel vehicle that
uses compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied natural gas (LNG)
in internal combustion engines. Natural gas vehicles should not be confused with auto-gas vehicles
powered by liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which is a fuel with a
fundamentally different composition. CNG-powered vehicles are considered to be
safer than gasoline-powered vehicles.
Existing
gasoline-powered vehicles may be converted to run on LPG or CNG or LNG, and can
be dedicated (running only on natural gas) or bi-fuel (running on either
gasoline or natural gas). Conversion kits for gasoline or diesel to LPG/LNG/CNG
are available in many countries, along with the labour to install them.
However, the range of prices and quality of conversion vary enormously. However,
an increasing number of vehicles worldwide are being manufactured to run on
CNG.
Though LNG and CNG
are both considered NGVs, the technologies are vastly different. Refueling
equipment, fuel cost, pumps, tanks, hazards, capital costs are all different.
One thing they share is that due to engines made for gasoline, computer-
controlled valves to control fuel mixtures are required for both of them, often
being proprietary and specific to the manufacturer. The on-engine technology
for fuel metering is the same for LNG and CNG. Autogas,
also known as LPG, has different chemical composition, but still a
petroleum-based gas and has a number of inherent advantages and disadvantages,
as well as noninherent ones. The inherent advantage of auto-gas over CNG is
that it requires far less compression (20% of CNG cost), is denser as it
is a liquid at room temperature, and thus requires far cheaper tanks (by the
consumer) and fuel compressors (by the provider) than CNG. As compared to LNG,
it requires no chilling (and thus less energy), or problems associated with
extreme cold such as frostbite.
Like NGV, it also has advantages over gasoline and diesel in cleaner emissions,
along with less wear on the engines over gasoline. The major drawback of LPG is
its safety. The fuel is volatile and the fumes are heavier than air, which
causes them to collect in a low spot in the event of a leak, making it far more
hazardous to use and more care is needed in handling. Besides this, LPG is more
expensive than Natural Gas.
The
blooming struggle of the Electric Vehicles
In 1828, a Hungarian physicist Anyos
Jedlik invented an early type of electric motor, and created a small
model car powered by his new motor. Between 1832 and 1839, Scottish inventor Robert
Anderson also invented a crude electric carriage. In 1835, Professor
Sibrandus Stratingh of Groningen, the Netherlands and his assistant
Christopher Becker from Germany also created a small-scale electric car,
powered by non-rechargeable primary cells. These were the first attempts
at creating an Electric Vehicle. Rechargeable batteries that provided a viable
means for storing electricity on board a vehicle did not come into being until
1859, with the invention of the lead–acid battery by French
physicist Gaston Plante. Camille Alphonse Faure, another French
scientist, significantly improved the design of the battery in 1881; his
improvements greatly increased the capacity of such batteries and led directly
to their manufacture on an industrial scale. In
1880 French inventor Gustave Trouve improved the efficiency of a small
electric motor developed by Siemens and using the recently developed
rechargeable battery, fitted it on an English James Starley tricycle,
thus so inventing the world's first Electric Vehicle.
After
enjoying success up to the beginning of the 20th century, the electric car
began to lose its position in the automobile market. A number of developments
contributed to this situation. The first hurdle was the non- availability of
infrastructure for recharging the batteries on long drives. By the 1920s an
improved road infrastructure improved travel times, creating a need for
vehicles with a greater range than that offered by electric cars. Worldwide
discoveries of large petroleum reserves led to the wide availability
of affordable gasoline, making gasoline powered cars cheaper to operate
over long distances. Electrical cars remained popular for short drives
within the city and around the neighbourhood. Finally, the initiation of
mass production of gasoline powered vehicles by Henry
Ford brought the price of gasoline powered vehicles down. By contrast, the price of similar electric
vehicles continued to rise and by 1912, an electric car sold for almost double
the price of a gasoline car. Most electric car makers stopped production at
some point in the 1910s. By the 1920s, the early heyday of electric cars had
passed, and a decade later, the electric automobile industry had effectively
disappeared.
On
31 July 1971, an electric car received the unique distinction of becoming the
first manned vehicle to drive on the Moon; that car was the Lunar
Roving Vehicle, which was first deployed during the Apollo
15 mission. The "Moon buggy" was developed
by Boeing and General-Motor’s subsidiary Delco Electronics. From
the 1960s to the 1990s, a number of companies made battery electric vehicles
converted from existing manufactured models, often using gliders. None
were sold in large numbers, with sales hampered by high cost and a limited
range. Most of these vehicles were sold to government agencies and electric
utility companies. The passage of the Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Research,
Development and Demonstration Act of 1976 in the US provided government
incentives for development of electric vehicles in the US. In the early 1990s,
the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the government of
California's "clean air agency", began a push for more
fuel-efficient, lower-emissions vehicles, with the ultimate goal being a move
to zero-emissions vehicles such as electric vehicles. In response,
automakers developed electric models, including the Chrysler
TEVan, Ford Ranger EV pickup truck, GM EV1 and S10
EV pickup, Honda EV Plus hatchback, Nissan
lithium-battery Altra EV miniwagon and Toyota RAV4 EV. However,
the automakers were accused of pandering to the wishes of CARB, in order to
continue to be allowed to sell fossil fuel powered cars in the lucrative
Californian market, while failing to adequately promote their electric vehicles,
in order to create the impression that the consumers were not interested in the
electric cars, all the while joining oil industry lobbyists in vigorously
protesting CARB's mandate.
The
emergence of Electric Vehicle dominance
The
emergence of metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) technology led to the
development of modern electric road vehicles. The MOSFET (MOS
field-effect transistor, or MOS transistor) developed in 1969 by Hitachi and
the microcontroller, a type of single-chip microprocessor, led to
significant advances in electric vehicle technology. MOSFET power
converters allowed operation at much higher switching frequencies, made it
easier to drive, reduced power losses, and significantly reduced prices, while
single-chip microcontrollers could manage all aspects of the drive control and
had the capacity for battery management. Another important technology that
enabled modern highway-capable electric cars is the lithium-ion battery
commercialised by Sony in the 1980s and 1990s. The lithium-ion battery was
responsible for the development of electric vehicles capable of long-distance
travel. Electric car maker Tesla Motors began development in 2004 on
the Tesla Roadster, which was first delivered to customers in 2008. The
Roadster was the first highway legal serial production all-electric
car to use lithium-ion battery cells, and the first production all-electric car
to travel more than 320 km (200 miles) per charge. Senior leaders at
several large automakers, including Nissan and General
Motors, have stated that the Roadster was a catalyst which demonstrated
that there is pent-up consumer demand for more efficient vehicles. In an August
2009 edition of The New Yorker, GM vice-chairman Bob Lutz was quoted
as saying, "All the geniuses here at General Motors kept saying
lithium-ion technology is 10 years away, and Toyota agreed with us – and boom,
along comes Tesla. So I said, 'How come some tiny little California start-up,
run by guys who know nothing about the car business, can do this, and we
can't?' That was the crowbar that helped break up the log jam”.
As
of June 2014, there were over 500,000 plug-in electric passenger cars and
utility vans in the world, with the U.S. leading plug-in electric car sales
with a 45% share of global sales. In
September 2014, sales of plug-in electric cars in the United States
reached the 250,000-unit milestone. In September 2018, the Norwegian market
share of all-electric cars reached 45.3% and plug-in hybrids 14.9%, for a
combined market share of the plug-in car segment of 60.2% of new car
registrations that month, becoming the world's highest-ever monthly market
share for the plug-in electric passenger segment in Norway and in any
country. In October 2018, Norway became the first country where 1 in every
10 passenger cars registered is a plug-in electric vehicle. Norway ended 2018
with plug-in market share of 49.1%, meaning that every second new passenger car
sold in the country in 2018 was a plug-in electric. The global stock of plug-in
electric passenger cars reached 5.1 million units in December 2018,
consisting of 3.3 million all-electric cars (65%) and 1.8 million
plug-in hybrid cars (35%). Despite the rapid growth experienced, the plug-in
electric car segment represented just about 1 out of every 250 motor
vehicles on the world's roads at the end of 2018. Tesla Motors also became
the first auto manufacturer to produce 1 million electric cars in March 2020.
As
of this day, there is a global race to abandon all fossil fuels and have all
electric vehicles plying the roads around the world. Infrastructure for electric
vehicle charging facilities is being developed at a war footing pace around the
globe with even third world nations joining the revolution. Large fossil fuel
refining Corporations have begun shedding their investments in fossil fuels and
investing their financial muscle into long lasting/ fast charging battery
manufacturing technology, development of charging stations and its inherent technologies.
Global electronic Corporations and mobile phone manufacturers are racing to
develop hi-tech electrical vehicles to compete for a market share with existing
automobile manufacturers. Heavy Industry and Electrical component manufacturers
have invested heavily into manufacturing components for EV Charging Stations. Every
nation has announced its commitment to completely shift into the electric
vehicle lifestyle by 2035. The race has just begun. When will you enter?
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