Transonic's goal: A car engine that gets 100 miles per gallon

Transonic is coming clean with its ambitions: it is working on a fuel injection system that will let liquid fuel cars get 100 miles a gallon.

And an engine equipped with Transonic's technology will be able to run on gas, ethanol or other types of fuel without help from batteries. In other words, a car with a Transonic-assisted engine would get as good or better mileage than a plug-in hybrid (mileage on plug-ins drops on freeways) but still have the punch of a gas car. More mileage leads directly to lower emissions, and also less dependence on foreign oil.

Put in a fuel like biodiesel and the car with the technology would, in theory, emit nearly zero emissions from the tailpipe.

The somewhat secretive start-up, based in Southern California, has received investments from both Venrock (the firm that grew out of the Rockefeller fortune) and Khosla Ventures. Until recently, the company has been relatively vague about its plans and still shows only details of its technology under nondisclosure agreements. I was given some details a few months ago but was sworn to secrecy--and, because I promised, I still can't talk about that. But vague details have begun to emerge.

The company has created a new type of fuel injector for high-compression engines that greatly improves energy efficiency, according to its Web site. Waste heat is minimized by the efficient use of energy, but efficiency can also be boosted by more advanced thermal management technologies and sophisticated combustion chamber designs.

Meanwhile, major car makers are trying to eke out efficiencies in their engines. General Motors and Toyota have been researching Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI), which increases mileage by varying the pressure and temperature inside an engine, for the past few years. HCCI promises to boost fuel economy by 20 percent or more. Honda has a diesel Accord coming in 2010 that gets 62 miles per gallon.

The company's president is Mike Cheiky, who also help start battery start-up Zinc Matrix Power. Cheiky, who has 45 patents and pending patent applications to his name, also has invented technology for the cellular industry. He invented some early prototypes around the ideas behind Transonic in 2005 and formed the company in 2006.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Venrock partner Ray Rothrock wrote a bit about the company in a column on VentureBeat.

"It minimizes the volume of carbon emissions by developing a way to reduce the amount of gasoline or other liquid fuels needed to go the same distance as engines today," he said. "This injector can be supplemented by advanced thermal management, EGR, electronic valves, and advanced combustion chamber geometries for even better utilization of a unit of fuel."

[lingsun]

Lawnmover engine on a skateboard.

That's the real way to get 100 miles per gallon.

[nicmart]

Coulda, woulda, shoulda

We shall see. It wasn't long ago that NEC was poised to market
consumer batteries (AA, AAA, etc.) that could be fully recharged in
30 seconds.

[gondarlinux]

Would this work with the Scuderi Design

I'm no gear head, but it would seem to me that this injection system combined with the Scuderi Group's new split-cycle engine could provide an incredible boost to fuel efficiency. Am I missing something?

- Wondering

[rbiz]

Is Lower Mileage the Goal?

The way this is written it makes it sound like we're supposed to
be excited because it gets better gas mileage than a hybrid.
Isn't the goal to get off of petroleum based fuels all together?

As in previous decades we come up with yet another ultra-high-
mileage engine that never gets produced, and if it did it would
only be taking us down the path of less but none-the-less
continued gasoline usage, doing nothing less than making us
feel perfectly justified in continuing our use of gasoline with
nothing but a shrug of the shoulders.

[zeeboid]

Will it tow my 21' Boat?

100mpg is great, for getting to work, don't get me wrong but to link global warming to this stuff is completly stupid, espically since less then half of the scientists believe man is the cause:

http://www.churchofglobalwarming.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=42

[Tejanosaurus]

Statistics

I believe that the same study that polled scientists about global warming stated that aproximately 72% of statistics used to support dubious arguments are made up on the spot. <grin>

[binaryspiral75]

Ignorance is showing

Sure maybe global warming is a farce... How about another argument to support higher fuel efficiency: we get most of our oil from the middle east - and we have soldiers dying over there every single day, or do half the scientists also disagree with that?

I suspect your large boat is attempting to compensate for something you ignorant fool.

[lyntone]

gas mileage

It takes years to increase gas mileage, but it takes about 2 minutes to increase the price at the pump.
We need an alternative fuel to compete.

[ira_davis]

Patent for 100mpg bought by GM in 1970's

There was a gentalman in El Paso Texas that developed a system that got 100mpg in the 1970's.
He applied for and a got Patent on it. So the technology for 100mpg cars has been around for over 25 years setting on a self in some warehouse somewhere.

[ira_davis]

Here is a link to info about 100mpg 1970 v8 ford

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGIC_enUS204US204&q=tom+ogle+100+mpg
This system was tested and worked.