So cars have been on a bit of a down swing recently in my mind... After catching XXX on FX tonight (it's not a dirty movie, it's a really terrible moving starring Vin Diesel as an adrenaline junkie who saves the world from chemical warfare. Yup. You read that right.) I was thinking about the differences in the ways that we thought about cars back when I was a youngin' (read: 9 years ago). The movie vaguely centers around impressive sports and muscle cars- and, shocker, Vin Diesel never asked about the mpgs on that GTO once. Go figure.
Nowadays, things are a little different, which I think is actually a good thing. We're much more cognizant of the environmental impact than ever before, which I like. But, coupled with the economic struggles that we've had (as a country) recently, it seems as though the car industry is stuck in a bit of a conundrum...On one hand, they're under a lot of pressure to make cars cheaper than ever to compete with all of the foreign disruptors, yet, but on the other hand, they're not given a lot of credit for quality cars anymore- it is commonly accepted that "really nice" luxury cars will be foreign ones. It seems that the approach that they've taken is to emphasize the patriotism of buying "USA-made" (not going so well for them) and to continually try to innovate faster than the other guys to make sure that they're products get more miles per gallon, and that consumers have cooler navigation and safety features.
Pinching pennies and trying to get more miles per gallon might not be very sexy, but it doesn't mean that there hasn't been some awesome things going on in this field. I recently was flipping through some backed issues of my Popular Sciences and I found a couple new engine designs that I thought were particularly interesting.
The OPOC engine, for example, (short for the opposed-piston, opposed-cylinder) increases efficiency by decreasing the amount of wasted energy (heat and friction) from the combustion chamber. They borrow some know-how from diesel engines (diesel engines, contrary to popular misconception, are actually very fuel efficient. This is because diesel engines form a 16:1 combustion ratio instead of approximately a 8:1 ratio of a non-diesel engine....Oh the things you learn owning a diesel!) and build on the increased power by improving the gains per single engine cycle. This basically means that for every engine cycle, the engine will produce power twice instead of once. Funded by Bill Gates and VC God, Vinod Khosla (Stanford Grad, btw), OPOC producers expect to produce a car that could deliver a 100 mpg car that can generate up to 300 horsepower. Pretty cool!
So the moral of the story for me is that these innovations could be the path for America to shed its stereotype of producing sub-par cars, could be an opportunity for new industry, will produce more environmentally friendly machines and, more importantly, shows that the US is still in the game in terms of scientific R&D. I don't really see a downside here for the US to invest a little bit more in these types of projects. (My feelings on private investments vs. government funded projects for science is a completely different post.)
Oh. And if you've never watched XXX with Vin Diesel, it's worth it. Why not relive the early 2000s?
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