Great news for compact range extenders

How is this a new concept and how is it not a Wankel?. This is exactly one of the ideas Felix Wankel proposed,it was actually built and tested;The idea of a rotating outer ring was dumped after tests showed excessive heat warp of the outer ring. I guess these guys are just going through old patents and making prototypes to see what could/would work.Maybe that's what you do when you already get people to invest in a non existing concept.Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the third different engine concept they already came out with,and non happen to be original to this company, just making prototype of other people's old ideas.

There is nothing new about this engine.Since the early 1800s, many versions of the device has been made,and proposed,there were prototypes by Kauerts,Bradshaw etc.Charles Bankcroft made extensive research on this engine from late 1920s to to early 1960s. He concluded that the engine would be only good for low rpm applcations,and would need very sturdy heavy duty gears to have any meaningful operational life.

HarveyD: You are totally right if we were talking about 25% efficiency .Advanced diesel are about 52% efficient,so if you improve that by 45% ,we get an engine which is 75.4% efficient.

I once read that the OPOC engine will be 45% more efficient in a class 8 trucks than a conventional engine.Since those trucks are diesel, so the claim is that OPOC engine is 45% more fuel efficient than the diesel in those trucks. Assuming those engines are 25% efficient ,that will make OPOC 70% fuel efficient.Now, in this article, an OPOC hybrid would be 50% more fuel efficient than a normal twin rotor turbine ,and a non hybrid version would be 30% more efficient than an helicopter turbine engine. The way they throw around words like 45% more ,50% greater just doesn't make any sense to me;The simple reason is this ,45% more, 50% greater would mean that this OPOC stuff is between 70% to 90% fuel efficient,and to me that is total crap.I would be amazed if at the end the engine gets 15% better mileage than a normal diesel engine.

Obviously,this is just another project that is not likely to materialize into anything useful.How efficient are small turbines, how about the noise issues,the heat issues?. The solutions to shielding and insulating these turbines would likely add more weight than what they initially thought they were gaining.A mini two stroke engine or even a mini rotary engine could be more efficient and would present less challenge in terms of noise and heat generation.Well, it is called a project,a lot of these projects just die as a PROJECT. Hey guy! An idea just popped into my head, how about a rocket engine as a range extender???

so, instead of looking at the pros and the cons; people are resulting into scare tactics.

ToppaTom,what I'm saying is this, if nuclear energy makes economic sense and could be harnessed safely,why aren't more investments going in that direction? Well, nowadays ,common sense seems to be a thing of the past.Too many special interest groups looking out just to line their own pockets,and don't care what's good for the society as a whole. I live in Canada right now, the country where I came from have for long depended on hydro-electricity and coal powerplants.The government now realizing that they couldn't keep up with the demands for energy are talking of exploiting nuclear.Guess what is happening?. Some special interest groups are runnings ads claiming that nuclear energy will destroy jobs in oil sectors,destabilize the oil industries,and will eventually kill the residence of wherever it's located.

Hey guys, I don't think getting rid of nuclear weapons means getting rid of nuclear energy.Energy and Weapon are not synonymous.