Tuesday, December 19, 2006

New hydrogen engines

I know this has nothing to do with saving you money right now but I thought this was some very interesting news from Ford Motor Company. The new hydrogen based engine will be a supercharged 6.8L V-10 which will power fords E-450 shuttle buses in early 2007. The engine will have forged pistons and connecting rods to handle the 20psi of boost provided by the 3.3L twin screw supercharger. Horsepower will be around 230hp and 310lb-ft of torque at 3000 RPM. There has been no mention of what kind of mileage will be expected and also how they will handle the issue of having no where to fill up. Currently there are only 3 hydrogen fuel stations in the world with only one of those being in the US at the ford plant in Detroit. The power numbers for this engine are very poor compared to a gas engine of the same displacement and boost numbers. A 6.8L supercharged gasoline engine would be expected to push somewhere close to 1000HP and 1000 ft-lb of torque at the rated 20psi of boost. The lack of power out of this engine leads me to believe it is very inefficient and will more than likely have a much higher operating cost than its gas counterpart.