Yahoo Autos This New Type of Engine Combines the Best of Both Gasoline and Diesel
Diesel engines are great because of the significant torque they produce, but also because they offer better fuel economy than comparable gas-powered engines. Gas engines, however, produce fewer toxic emissions than their diesel counterparts. Now, there's a new type of engine that promises to combine the fuel economy of a diesel with the lower emissions of gas-powered engines.
It's called a Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine. And as Engineering Explained, well, explains, an HCCI engine runs on gasoline but ignites its fuel using compression like a diesel. The result is an engine that gives you the best of both worlds.
The biggest challenge with an HCCI engine is that it can only control that combustion when its internal temperature is kept within a small window. Otherwise, you have knock problems and fuel detonation issues.
If an automaker can find a way to reliably control internal temperature, though, production HCCI engines could very well be the future of internal combustion.
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