In recent years, as car companies and government departments have focused on new energy vehicles, more and more brands have begun to announce the suspension of old internal combustion engines, and no longer invest in new research and development resources, and fully transform into the new energy vehicle industry.
In line with the needs of energy conservation and emission reduction, many countries have even announced the timetable for the withdrawal of fuel vehicles from the market.
Nowadays, the explosion in the field of new energy vehicles, the sound has completely overshadowed the traditional fuel vehicle market, and the internal combustion engine seems to have been inevitably marginalized.
Some people believe that with the rapid development of vehicle electrification, the traditional internal combustion engine has moved towards the countdown to being eliminated by the market.
Is this really the case?
In the domestic automobile market, the internal combustion engine we mention generally refers to the gasoline engine. In fact, although there have been very few major breakthroughs in the technical aspects of the internal combustion engine in recent years, it does not represent standing still.
On the one hand, through the superposition of many new technologies, the internal combustion engine has also achieved further improvement in efficiency in recent years.
Such as ultra-high pressure cylinder direct injection, integrated exhaust, closed cylinder technology, variable displacement oil pump, valve timing variable, Miller/Atkinson cycle and other technologies of a large number of applications, although each technology is analyzed separately, the fuel efficiency can be improved is not high, but combined together, the comprehensive effect is still considerable.
Today, a newly designed gasoline single-action internal combustion engine can achieve thermal efficiency of more than 40%.
On the other hand, although car companies have begun to reduce investment in engine research and development, if the perspective is expanded, the innovation of the internal combustion engine industry has not stopped.
Recently, the American startup Astron released a new internal combustion engine concept, which is completely different from the existing internal combustion engine on the market in form, or will trigger a huge change in the internal combustion engine industry.
According to the official data, this new internal combustion engine weighs only 15kg and can achieve a maximum power of 162 horsepower.
Due to the very little friction, the mechanical efficiency is extremely high, the internal combustion process is long enough, the thermal efficiency can reach an astonishing 60%, and if you feel that the horsepower is not enough, you can also do tandem, like a rotor engine to achieve multiple machines running at the same time.
Judging from the effect, this is simply the second spring of the internal combustion engine.
But don't get too excited, this product is still in the laboratory stage, some insiders believe that this product may need to further solve the sealing problem from the real mass production.
In fact, leaving aside this new species that may trigger a second revolution in the internal combustion engine, even if it is based on the present, the internal combustion engine will not disappear easily.
With the acceleration of the development of electrification, today's automobiles have gradually developed from gasoline single-movement to hybrid, and the internal combustion engine is not only used as a power source, but also an energy conversion device.
The role of the internal combustion engine has also changed, from driving wheels to generating electricity efficiently.
After the role change, through more cooperation with batteries and motors, the efficiency of the internal combustion engine is not only higher, but also reduces the frequency of maintenance and failure due to the relatively single fixed working state.
epilogue:
As a key component of the century-old history of automobile development, the internal combustion engine has gradually changed its mission and role with the advent of the era of electrification.
In recent years, with the listing of various remix products at home and abroad, the positioning of the internal combustion engine as an energy conversion device has gradually become clear.
At present, pure electric vehicle models can not become absolutely dominant in a short period of time, more is a supplement to the market, and hybrid products have a good emission reduction effect, relatively environmentally friendly, and there is no mileage anxiety, the past 10-20 years will be the best choice for replacing gasoline single-action products in the market.
In a sense, the emergence of DHT hybridization is to give the internal combustion engine a second life, so it is actually too early to mention the "doomsday theory" of the internal combustion engine.