mr.zoom

iTrader: (1)

Mazda To Lease Cars Featuring Hydrogen-Powered Rotary Engine
Feb 16, 2006
Nikkei English News


TOKYO (Nikkei)--Mazda Motor Corp. (7261) announced Wednesday that it will begin leasing the RX-8 Hydrogen RE, a car equipped with a rotary engine that can run off either hydrogen or regular gasoline.

When powered by hydrogen, the RX-8 Hydrogen RE runs clean with no gas emissions. And because the car can also run off gasoline, it can be driven places where hydrogen filling stations are not yet available.

Mazda has already signed leasing contracts with Idemitsu Kosan Co. and Iwatani International Corp. (8088) and plans to deliver cars to them in late March. Before the end of this year, the automaker hopes to sign similar contracts for eight more of the cars with municipal governments and energy-related companies.

Because the RX-8 Hydrogen RE has a simpler structure than hydrogen-powered fuel cell cars, Mazda has set the leasing price at 420,000 yen a month, which is only around half the cost of leasing a fuel-cell-powered car.


Just thought I should share this news

classicauto

iTrader: (3)

hydrogen power was always a dream of mine and I could never figure out what the big issue was in making it happen.

It's my understanding that a hydrogen FUELED car would have higher combustion temps due to the more volitile hydrogen being burned...along with the obvious fact that having a tank full of hydrogen in the car might be slightly dangerous....

but either way I would love to see a wankel spitting pure water out the exhaust....how do you like me now Mr. Etest!!!!

eViLRotor

iTrader: (2)

I feel a rotary Hindenburg coming on...

sjd

A friend of mine just got back from Japan and brought me back a Mazda magazine that has an article on the Hydrogen RX-8. It also has a ton of tuning articles for the FD3S including a buyers guide, too bad I can't read all of it.

C-Murder

Do they still inject oil into the engine? Thats the only thing I have against the rotary being turned into a hydrogen powerplant - it'll never be completely polution free until they figure out how to lubricate without oil. Piston engines would be better suited for hydrogen as a fuel. Hydrogen, as BMW has found out, can burn lean without overheating like gasoline would. Therefore you only need to regulate the amount of hydrogen entering the chamber, instead of air and gas. A tank, if constructed properly for hydrogen, would be just as safe as a gas tank; since hydrogen needs air to combust as does Gas. The internal temps of a hydrogen fueled car are not as high as gasoline, the only major difference you would have to worry about is how quickly the hydrogen combusts. I hope this clarifies some of your worries about hydrogen. It is not more dangerous that gasoline, just different.

Aaron Cake

iTrader: (1)

The biggest issues are:

1. Production. We need to find an efficient and environmentally friendly way (not to mention cost effective) to produce hydrogen. Currently most of the world's H2 is produced by reforming petroleum. That costs a lot of energy and releases a tonne of CO2. Electrolysis is highly inefficient. A much better use of the electricity is to just charge a battery pack in an EV.

2. Distribution. We have no infrastructure to transport, store and sell hydrogen.

Frankly I don't understand what the hydrogen hype is. The electrical infrastructure is already here, the technology for high performance long range EVs has existed for years, and you can make electricity very cleanly. We could be driving zero emission 400 mile range high performance EVs tomorrow if just half the money wasted on hydrogen was redirected.

now

iTrader: (1)

100% true there is no sense in burning up say enough energy to drive a gas powered car a 100 miles to make a fuel that
when run in a car will take you 10 miles, the end result is worse!
matt

12RotorMonster

Sounds Friggin' sweet!!!

But my biggest question is How?

Commonly, there are 2 different types of Hydrogen engines. Gas and Liquid. The Hydrogen gas engine is usually a type of turbine engine (although there a a few internal combustion engine designs out there and those I've seen are solely hydrogen powered) and the liquid hydrogen engine uses pressure to turn the hydrogen gas into a liquid and then utilizes a spark plug to ignite it.(kind of like a diesel engine, but with spark).

In order for a Gasoline-Hydrogen hybrid to work, the hydrogen would most likely have to be in liquid form(there are various reasons for this/If they did develope a gasoline~hydrogen-gas hybrid that would peak my curiosity even more...). However, there are only 2 ways to make hydrogen a liquid ~ either lower the temperature to -423ºF (the flash point of hydrogen) or increase pressure to 125 atmospheres (or about 1,750 PSI). Since it would be near impossible to lower the temp within a vehicle to -423ºF, pressure is their only alternative. Although this is where we hit a road block....normal gasoline doesn't work effeciently (at all) under super-high pressure...so now I am left scratching my head....

Basically, my question boils down to:
How can the same system either use gasoline or hydrogen?
(from the wording, I'm assuming that the fuel type would depend on driver's preference and nothing would have to be altered in order to switch from one fuel to the other)

I am by no means saying that it's not possible to create such a hybrid (obviously it's not, they have the patent to prove that), I'd just like to see some schematics in order to better know how they were able to make it work (and cost effectively at that). Mostly, I'm just curious how they built it, since the design specs, construction tolerances, fuel storage, timing and countless other things are very different between gas and hydrogen powered engines. (not to mention the fact that gasoline requires a temperature of 853ºF to ignite, where pure hydrogen can ignite at a temp as low as -423ºF).

I know this is a long shot, but..... Does anyone here have access to that kind of information?

vipernicus42

iTrader: (4)

Why does everyone seem to think that this is new news? There are threads all over the forum and a friend e-mailed me two articles about it yesterday. I saw more detailed articles about the hydrogen rx8 last year at this time. I even had pics of a white Rx8 with "Hydrogen RE" or something like that painted accross the side on a test track.

Anyhoo, I'll try to find the older articles because they had much more detail on how they were doing the engine, which seems to be completely absent from the more recent releases.

Jon

vipernicus42

iTrader: (4)

Here's an html summary/ripoff of the pdf that I'm still looking for:

http://www.hybrid-vehicles.net/mazda...sis-hybrid.htm

And here's one where it states it was shown at the 2003 motor show
http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/frame...hp&carnum=1792

Here's one with a better picture of that sexy white Rx8:
http://www.worldcarfans.com/news.cfm...-rotary-engine

Rotary news had the story in 2003
http://rotarynews.com/node/view/215
http://rotarynews.com/node/view/216

Well that's all I can find for now, off to work.

Jon

Hellbreed

Are you sure? I have (had, not sure if I can find it) an old popular science magazine that is at least 10 years old that shows Mazda's work with the rotary and hydrogen. According to the article, they said that the rotary is the best suited engine for hydrogen because it does not have any valves. The problem was that in a piston engine the hydrogen would precombust being ignited from the heat of the exaust valve. I'll see if I can find the magazine, I doubt I would throw it out but may be lost in the house somewhere.

sjd

It's news because you can now actually lease them in Japan.

CompuBob

wierd, I start looking into hydrogen within the last week or two, doing research like crazy.. and now everyone is suddenly talking about it.
I'm looking into it for different reasons though.

Aaron Cake

iTrader: (1)

I was actually talking to a fuel cell engineer two days ago and even he said that hydrogen was a dead end.

Bass

Did anyone see the article today in the Star? It was talking about Ford's plan to carry a hybrid in their F150 that uses a high and low pressure brake (I think) fluid tanks.

Mr. Eccentric

I don't understand what hydrogen electric hype is, but I completely understand the allure of hydrogen combustion. I think what Mazda and BMW have done in sticking to the possibility of straight hydrogen is highly commendable. The fact is, what enthusiast is going to want to give up the visceral attributes of internal combustion in favour of the whizz of an EZ-Go golf cart? If the end result is no emissions either way, I think the promise of hydrogen combustion is much more desirable.

Without a breakthrough in processing to separate hydrogen there is an obvious barrier to progress, but I think electric technology is in need of a breakthrough of equal magnitute to make it feasible as well. A few electric cars in society is fine, but what happens when everyone has to plug their car in at night? Most of the electricity in NA is coal generated as it is; and that's one of our largest sources of pollutants. Then... addressing the fun to drive factor of an electric car is another thing all together.

On a sidenote, it never ceases to amaze me on how many 'armchair engineers' there are in these forums quoting snippits of chemistry and metallurgy in the hopes that the reader will be so bamboozled by their rant that what they've written will automatically become gospel. Hilarious.

Aaron Cake

iTrader: (1)

Yes, it's certainly better then running it through a fuel cell. But we have the same problem as we do with gas. Most of today's hydrogen is produced by reforming petrolium, and then there's the infrastructure to transport and store it. In terms of efficiency we're already in the toilet with gas engines so I guess it's not the biggest crime in the universe if we stay there with hydrogen. At least it's cleaner (or rather, can be cleaner).

Everyone always seems to think of EVs in terms of golf-carts, but if you mention gas performance cars they're always picturing Ferreris, Porsches, etc. People conveniently forget that 99% of the gas cars on our roads are low performance, poor handling slugs. An electric car population would be about the same. Yes, there would be people driving glorified golf-carts just as there is today with gas cars (SMART car, Geo Metro, etc.). But there would also be the same minority driving high performance EVs as well.

Think of it this way: a gas car must contain certain components. Engine, transmission, gas tank, exhaust, etc. These components dictate the basic shape and layout of all combustion cars. Even small engines like the rotary take up a good chunk of space. Now look at an electric motor. The motor in the Insight is about the size of a single 13B rotor, yet was built by Honda for up to 70KW output (the Insight only uses about 10). That's 100HP in the palm of your hand. Even if you triple it to 300HP, it's size is still insignificant. And there's of course no need for a transmission. The motor controller is small (about the size of a standard car starting battery...usually much smaller) and the batteries (in this case I would be talking about small and light Li-Polymer) can be spread throughout the vehicle for optimum packaging and weight distribution.

We as a people have learned to associate the growl of a combustion engine with performance and I love it just as much as the next guy/gal. But performance can come in many ways. How about 0-100KM/H in 2 seconds in complete silence? The torque of a high performance EV is something that must be experienced to believe. If you really want to row the gears, then a transmission could be added (though it is unnecessary) to gain both efficiency and performance.

It's all relative.

Electricity now is a bit dirty, but the beauty of it is that it can come from anywhere. Wind, solar, nuclear (though some argue that nukes are evil incarnate...but at least nuclear waste is easy to contain), millions of hamsters running on wheels, etc. Combustion will always be dirtier.


If the end result is no emissions either way, I think the promise of hydrogen combustion is much more desirable.

Mr. Eccentric

I don't profess to knowing the ins and outs of electric power in automotive applications, but from my perspective, (and as much as I'm not a huge follower of Ferrari), could anyone imagine a Ferrari without its signature engine note? Or a Porsche, or the rotary? This is looking at it pretty one dimensionally, however, there are still other issues. The batteries are usually NiMh correct? I notice you noted Li Polymer, but how much of a weight and space savings is this going to afford? Does it offer a significantly larger range? People think of golf carts because the fact is that electric cars that have been made have been tiny light vehicles to extend range. How do we create a 3500lb full size car that is battery operated? I don't know if the development at this rate will enable us to achieve this in a sensible time period. Without some major breakthrough at the scientific level I can't see electric being a realistic part of automotive future. I have heard also that maintenance is so low on an electric vehicle that the auto manufactures that use parts and service to augment their profitability would never let electric go mainstream anyway.

There may be the possibility to create high output electric engines, but similar to a fuel burning engine would that not mean that with more power comes the requirement of more juice? I would assume range would undoubtedly become significantly downrated.

Maybe I'm just a pessimist on this topic, but don't get me wrong, I think it's a disgrace that we've run petroleum based combustion engines in our vehicles for such a huge period of industrialized time without anything other than minor leaps forward (and even those mostly in fuel economy and controlling emissions with band-aid solutions). I know that's a hypocritical statement; I do love my rotary engine, but I dont' think change on a commodity this widespread can realistically be sparked by me denouncing my engine... so that's what I'll hide behind on that point.

Anyway, this is an interesting topic. Writing about this type of theoretical thing is always enjoyable.

coldfire

iTrader: (1)

hydrogen is not the technology to solve our problems on a large scale, at least not at the moment. the development has been rather small-scale based; infrastructure for hydrogen is just not there for mass implementation. fuel cells are a good idea but have not been executed properly. i think BURNING hydrogen, which is what this RX-8 does, is even less effective than fuel cells.

unfortunately at the moment, large scale R&D isn't really being made by the auto-manufacturers. the fact is right now, they aren't going to be making much money off alternative tech on cars. actually, a lot of the "environmental" things car companies have been doing are primarily for marketing value. when it comes down to it, it's all about MONEY.

the best thing for the immediate future are clean-burning gasoline or diesel cars. a lot of newer cars burn amazingly clean and get great mileage. hell, the new Porsche 911 produces something like 450hp and burns as clean as a Civic 15 years ago.

after fossil fuels start running out though, who knows...

Mr. Eccentric

No matter how clean these engines are, we're still at the mercy of the oil producing nations with gas engines.

Last time I checked, BMW was producing V12's that use hydrogen and were getting power output equivalent to V8's. They also said that at the end of the development, the engineers speculated that hydrogen has potential to actually produce slightly more power than an equivalent gas power counterpart.

The problem with hydrogen is Mazda and BMW are the only manuf's concentrating on the combustion method. That will slow development. As far as processing/collecting hydrogen, I'm sure there's a great deal of work going on outside the automotive industry that can be tranferred to create the infrastructure if need be. Any alternative solution, electric, hydrogen, or otherwise will take a great deal of time. I think the infrastructure is the least of the barriers.

rx7racerca

iTrader: (1)

While hydrogen has its particular problems to be resolved, it does potentially offer more of the versatility and range we've become accustomed to in petroleum powered vehicles - with the caveat already pointed out that the hydrogen needs to be generated by a method other than fossil fuel powered extraction of hydrogen from water.

Battery-powered electric cars have their own set of drawbacks. Limited range is one of the most obvious, especially if full power is called upon frequently - eg, enjoying the instant and powerful torque of the electric motor. Batteries simply don't offer the energy density of petroleum fuels - a broad issue that explains why over the course of a century of widespread use of fossil fuels no viable alternative has emerged. Range isn't much of an issue for typical city use, but is a big factor if you can only get to Banff (or less), then have to plug in for several hours.

Hybrids are a partial answer to this, in that the gas motor and dino fuel allow longer range and versatility, but the advantage of hybrids in terms of conserving fuel is generally seen only in city driving, where lower speedsand frequent stops allow the electric motor and regenerative braking to scale down use of the gas/diesel motor and recover part of the energy expended accelerating the vehicle to speed. Like pure electrics, hybrids tend to have high weight for vehicle size (due to the weight of the batteries), which in turn limits handling - limiting prospects for sport models

Batteries technology isn't showing signs of the kind of breakthough in energy density needed to attain the kind of range we're accustomed to, and there would still be the question of how to generate the electricity to charge the batteries - electric power plants can be more efficient than multiple small gas motors burning the same amount of fuel, and hydro, wind, and solar power can reduce our dependence on fossil fuel for electric power somewhat, but can't supply our full needs, especially if we want to replace fossil fuels for vehicles with battery or hydrogen power.

However, I really think the longterm answer lies in harvesting a new energy source entirely - solar energy not striking the Earth. This would have to take the form of large solar power arrays in space, or likely better, the moon (to provide a source of raw materials to build the arrays). These can be more efficient than on earth, as there is not the energy absorption of the atmosphere, and the seasonal vagaries of climate and weather. Such arrays could then beam the energy to earth's surface via microwaves, or perhaps better, used to generate anti-matter, which could then be used to fuel fusion reactors to supply our energy needs. Currently fusion reactor research has been stalled for the reason of not being able to sustain the reaction through magnetic constriction and heating of the fusion mass. Making anti-matter part of the mass could mean the magnetic containment no longer has to supply the full energy required to sustain the reaction, with a substantial part of the energy yield coming from matter annihilation. With a large supply of non-terrestrial energy, both fusion power generation electricity, and large-scale splitting of hydrogen from water could supply the mobile energy source for personal and commercial vehicles, bringing us back to the value of research into hydrogen powered vehicles.

The problem with such a vision is that it would take both advances in our current technology levels, although not unrealistic advances (particularly in robotics - its neither safe, nor efficient to use large numbers of people in space to construct the infrastructure needed). And it would require planning 50-60 years down the road - something politicians are loath to do, and perhaps directing our efforts on a project less glamourous and more expensive than putting a man on Mars by 2020 - NASA's current big project, along with trying to replace the shuttles with a more efficent and safer lift vehicle.

12RotorMonster

Hydrogen is abit far off.... (the lease price for the Hydrogen Rx8 is 450,000 yen/mo.=~$3,500/month...Holy crap!!!)

If you want to know the immediate future, just go to:
http://www.livegreengoyellow.com

E85 Ethanol is much more feasable (not to mention practical)

Aaron Cake

iTrader: (1)

I'm not much of a Ferarri guy myself. An older Testerosa is pretty sweet, and a Dino with a 20B transplant wouldn't be so bad...But otherwise I'm not that excited.

Anyway, engine noise is a learned response. We have all been taught to associate power and speed with noise, and it really is a wonderful thing. But electrics make a different noise which it just as beautiful. Mainly it's about perception. Is noise so important that it's a primary concern, then a vibrating noisemaker can be added as an option.

For hybrids, yes. NiMH is suited for a hybrid application since it is light, and capable of sustaining large and sudden charge/discharge currents. It is not an efficient battery as it must dissipate a LOT of energy as heat (all the hybrids including the Insight have multiple high-flow fans to cool the batteries) but with a gas engine as the primary power source efficiency is going to suck (compared to an EV) regardless.

Most hobbyist EVs are just lead acid, which basically results in lead sleads with poor performance, poor range and massive battery packs.

Most commercial EVs have been either NiMh or NiCad, with a few lead acid versions thrown in. NiCad was the best choice until Li-Ion came around which blows everything else out of the water.

Lithium (Li-Polymer, "Super" Li-Polymer) batteries are the magic bullet when it comes to EVs. The energy density of modern Li-Polymer batteries is very close to gasoline when you consider that most of the energy in gas is wasted in heat. Since electric drivetrains are basically around 80%-90% efficient then pound for pound Li-Polymer will move a vehicle only a little less then gasoline.

I'm not sure that's entirely it...Most of the commercial EVs are basically golf-carts like the NEVs (Gem, Sparrow, etc.). Fairly useless in my opinion unless you're living in a retirement village.

[quote]
How do we create a 3500lb full size car that is battery operated? [/qutoe]

We don't. Well we could if you really want but ideally we build sub 2000LB vehicles out of advanced materials. This should in fact be standard for all vehicles, not just electric. It's more important in electrics because we have a finite amount of space to store batteries....We can't just jam more gas into it at will.

Obviously this requires some initial investment. Carbon fibre and the like are expensive to manufacture and thus it just requires some development time to get production costs down. Basically the same stuff that was brute-forced years ago in the combustion car industry.

That's just it; the technology already exists. The motor, controller and electronics have existed for years, they've just been refined. In fact the electric motor is so refined that there's basically nothing left to do. Motors that have efficiency in the high 90s are available if you're willing to shell out the cash. Up until a few years ago batteries were the limitation but now with the Lithium cells (and the upcoming Sodium batteries...those will blow some minds) it's no longer an issue...

Nail, head, hit.

Electric motor output per size/weight is already orders of magnitude above that of combustion engines (even the turbine). As with a gas car, range would go down if you are a leadfoot.

You would have to pry the rotors out of my cold-dead fingers, but that doesn't mean that I can't own a high performance EV as well.

coldfire

iTrader: (1)

an 800bhp 2400kg electric car
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/preview...htwheeler.html

Aaron Cake

iTrader: (1)

I skipped right past this one because I figured I would answer most of it by posting the previous reply but there are a few things here that warrant response.

That's half true. There are basically two hybrid systems in use: Honda and Toyota.

Toyota's system favours city driving as the electric motor is far more aggressive and the system is capable of electric only operation. Many Prius drivers are reporting city mileage that exceeds highway mileage. But then there are also drivers reporting better highway mileage. In both cases I think it mainly has to do with how you are driving the car. If you're a typical highway driver and fly down the left lane at 140, then your mileage in in the pooper compared to the low speed city driving (even with the start-stops). If you are aggressive around town and then a right lane highway driver, then you'll see better highway mileage on long trips.

Honda's system is the opposite. Until this year, it was incapable of operating electric only and thus the gas engine had to run any time the car was moving itself. Because Honda's hybrids use the gas engine as the primary power source and the electric as an assist, the Honda system is most efficient on the highway. With the Civic and Accord it's not much of a difference because they don't have lean-burn (well, the Civic does but good luck trying to achieve it). The Insight however, does and makes the highway vs. city difference huge. In town I can average between 60 and 75 MPG, generally around 70MPG. On the highway, it's 80 MPG and up. Getting 70 MPG in the city takes a certain driving style that most people do not employ so average Insight drivers in the city see around 60 MPG. Once you are on the highway and gliding along in lean burn, over 100 MPG is not untouchable.

Well that's just wrong as well. My Insight weighs 1800LBs. The battery pack weighs 48 LBs. The 2004 Prius weighs 2890 LBs, which is about average for a car it's size. It's battery pack is larger and heavier then the Insights at 115 LBs.

Studies have shown otherwise. Just Google for it.

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