DETRIOT – General Motors said on Tuesday that it, the Robert Bosch Corp., and Stanford University are working together on a new type of ignition that could reduce emissions and cut fuel consumption of gas engines by as much as 20 percent.
Diesel engines would become cleaner too with the new system, which is being developed as part of a $2.5 million program the companies and the university will work on for three years. The so-called homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI), results in fuel burning more completely than in today?s internal-combustion engines, as well as producing nearly no oxides of nitrogen ? the molecules that destroy ozone and form smog.
The process compresses the fuel-air charge in a gas engine in a way similar to the method used in diesel engines ? that is, without a spark plug. Gas engines, researchers indicate, could be 80 percent as efficient as diesel engines for half the cost.
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