Posted on Wednesday 28 May 2008
It appears General Motors will be the first manufacturer to use HCCI technology in its vehicles, with new reports claiming the revolutionary technology will first appear in the recently revealed Opel Insignia. GM has been running tests of the efficient powertrain in a number of Opel Vectra and Saturn Aura prototypes (the predecessor to the Insignia) and soon the latest Insignia will become the first production car to be equipped with HCCI technology.
HCCI works by achieving combustion through compression of the air-fuel mix rather than using a spark plug. This is similar to how a diesel works, but now the technology is being applied to petrol engines and is already showing 15% improvements in fuel efficiency.
Thanks to GM’s advances in the technology, the HCCI system can be used while idling and up to speeds of 55mph, but at speeds greater than this or when more vigorous acceleration is required a traditional spark-plug system will be used.
While the upcoming Insignia will be the first GM vehicle to use the technology, other products should follow, reports AutoExpress. If combined with other fuel-saving technologies, such as low-resistance tires and hybrid systems, the savings from HCCI could add up to be very significant.
Opel Insignia Coupe and Estate renderings
What’s this, an American based company at the forefront of fuel efficient technology? Maybe even bringing out the world’s first plug-in hybrid? What are the haters going to do?
If true, this is great news… when is it scheduled to appear?
I would like to see the gas mileage numbers when the first cars come out. The term “fuel efficiency” used in the article doesn’t sound very accurate. Efficiency in physics (and in engineering) applies to heat engines and is defined as the amount o heat an engine can convert into useful work, and in that regard diesel engines are more efficient than Otto (petrol or gasoline ) engines (45% vs. 25% resp.). This type of efficiency has little or nothing to do with gas mileage or “fuel efficiency” mentioned in the article. In other words, you can drive a car powered by an efficient gasoline or diesel engine and still end up paying more at a gas station…Better gas mileage of diesel engines comes from the fact that they deliver higher torque than petrol ones at lower rpm’s. Data obtained from a dyno could give the results we expect (or not).
Gus, you should be shot in your empty head!