Microsoft founder Bill Gates is betting $23.5 million on a promising new engine technology, the opoc.
He’s better known as a tech guru – and, since his retirement from Microsoft, as a mega-philanthropist. But Seattle billionaire Bill Gates is now betting on what some have described as a revolutionary new automotive engine technology.
Gates is one of two new principal investors in EcoMotors, a suburban Detroit start-up that is developing a technology called the opoc motor. Short for opposed piston-opposed cylinder, its developers claim it can run on either regular unleaded gasoline or diesel and not only boosts fuel economy but also reduces the number of parts needed compared to a conventional gas or diesel powertrain.
The Microsoft founder is putting up $23.5 million in two-year-old EcoMotors. He is joined as a new investor by Khosla Ventures, a major investment firm from Menlo Park, California. The Silicon Valley venture capital firm’s founder, Vinod Khosla, was one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems.
The new engine “can be an important step in providing affordable, low-emissions transportation for the developing world,” said Gates, explaining his involvement in the EcoMotors project. He has steered a significant share of his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation cash to third-world projects, such as the elimination of malaria. But his personal involvement in the auto industry – beyond Microsoft’s push into auto technology – is new.
Energy!
EcoMotors’ appeal is twofold. There’s the new technology, and a set of old names. The venture is run by one-time General Motors wunderkind Don Runkle, who left the maker to work at its parts spin-off, Delphi Corp., before venturing out on his own. He serves as CEO, while John Coletti, best known for his work on Ford Motor Co.’s performance vehicles, is president and chief operating officer. The basic design of the opoc engine, meanwhile, was developed by Peter Hofbauer, former head of powertrain development at Volkswagen AG. Hofbauer is EcoMotors chairman.
An opoc engine is half the size and weight of a gas engine, with less than half the parts.
That distinguished cast has earned credibility for a company going up against a well-entrenched production base for conventional engine technology. Over the decades, inventors and entrepreneurs have proposed a variety of alternatives to the long-lived internal combustion engine, including the Wankel rotary – today used in only limited application by Mazda – the Stirling engine, and Orbital’s two-stroke.
Each of these technologies has either proved lacking in some key area – the rotary short on mileage, the Orbital unable to meet emissions standards – or simply unable to offer enough of an advantage to justify replacing billions of dollars of investments already laid down for conventional powertrain production.
But the opoc appears to have some solid advantages that is getting the technology some serious attention. EcoMotors claims the engine can yield up to 50% better fuel efficiency than a conventional gasoline powertrain, with a comparable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. An opoc, meanwhile, is half the size and half the weight, with half the parts of a conventional gas engine. That, EcoMotors projects, should mean lower costs for tooling and production.
“It’s a better mousetrap,” contends Runkle, who suggests that the technology could be put into production within the next several years.
(Click Here for more on the opoc engine.)
The former GM vice president says he carries a small version of the opoc in his briefcase which is powerful enough to power an entire home. That suggests that the technology could find applications beyond the auto industry.
Along with the new venture funding from Gates, EcoMotors has a request pending for a $200 million loan from the Department of Energy, which has been sponsoring a number of efforts to develop clean, high-efficiency powertrain technologies.
Other recipients include Tesla Motors, the California-based electric vehicle manufacturer that recently launched an IPO, and Fisker Automotive, another Golden State firm planning to produce plug-in hybrids.
Coincidentally, all three firms hope to launch production at former General Motors facilities. Tesla recently announced it is taking over the NUMMI plant, near San Francisco, long run as a Toyota-GM joint venture. Fisker has acquired an abandoned GM plant in Delaware. And EcoMotors hope to produce the opoc at an old GM engine plant in Livonia, Michigan.
But those other two start-ups suggest another challenge for EcoMotors. While few experts believe the internal combustion engine will go away any time soon, electric powertrain technology is getting the spotlight right now – and a significant share of the new capital flowing into the auto industry.
OPOC is an old concept that the Ukranians used in a Soviet tank. What’s new is the CAD/modeling and manufacturability aspect.
Other companies such as L3 Communications and BAE Systems are looking at OPOC for military applications as well.
Good point, Bill, and I shouldn’t make it sound like the basic opoc concept was developed by the EcoMotors team. What they have done, apparently, is develop a refined version of the technology that can meet critical challenges like mileage and emissions, while still delivering the basic advantages of earlier opoc designs.
It’s a similar situation to what Orbital had hoped to do with the 2-stroke, though one can only wonder whether EcoMotors will do a better job getting it production ready.
Paul A. Eisenstein
Publisher, TheDetroitBureau.com
Quote from an interview of CEO Don Runkle (of OPOC engine):
“The OPOC is cheaper, better, simpler, stronger, lighter and cleaner than any other power generating technology now or in the foreseeable future. . .The engine’s width is exaggerated a bit . . .”
Looking from a strictly technical viewpoint:
The OPOC
The two external pistons of the OPOC are the good ones. Their arrangement and lubrication is similar to those of the cross-head engines. A drawback is the necessarily long and heavy piston pin that extends well outside the cylinder. Another drawback is the two long and heavy connecting rods per external piston (about 2.5 times longer than the single connecting rod of the internal piston) and the increased number of crankpins and bearings.
As compared to a piston performing a pure sinusoidal motion of the same stroke, the external piston of the OPOC moves more slowly around the Combustion Dead Center (CDC). This would improve the combustion efficiency, yet they come the internal pistons to spoil this advantage. The internal pistons of the OPOC move, around the CDC, more quickly than a piston performing a pure sinusoidal motion of the same stroke. Finally the volume between the two pistons and the cylinder increases, around the CDC, more quickly than in case of pistons performing pure sinusoidal motion.
There is also a difficult lubrication issue with the internal pistons of the OPOC, especially the one thrusting over the exhaust ports. The hot cylinder with the exhaust port slots is where the piston skirt has to touch (to slide, to abut) in order to pass to the cylinder the thrust loads generated by the inclination of the connecting rod. The problem is that increasing the quantity of the oil at the exhaust port area of the cylinder, the oil consumption (it escapes at the exhaust) is also increased and the quality of the oil degrades sooner.
In order to counterbalance the first order inertia forces and moments, the OPOC engine has to use internal and external pistons of the same reciprocating mass (it is the mass of the piston, of the piston pin and of the upper part of the connecting rod mass). Yet each internal piston has a small piston pin and a single short connecting rod, while each external piston has two long and heavy connecting rods and a big and heavy piston pin. The solution (?) is to add mass to the internal pistons. This increases the inertia loads and the friction loss. Besides, it is the offset between the two cylinders of the OPOC that generates a 2nd order unbalanced inertia moment. There is also a strong unbalanced inertia torque of 2nd order (just like in any four in-line conventional engine).
The OPOC engine is so long (wide) because it is based on an opposed cylinder to counterbalance the inertia loads. Despite all this complication (four pistons, two short connecting rods, four long connecting rods, two cylinders) the “vibration-free” or “balance quality” of OPOC is not exceptional.
Another issue is the different timing, during the scavenging, of the one cylinder as compared to the other: The cylinder that uses the internal piston to controls the exhaust ports aspirates differently than the cylinder that uses the external piston to control the exhaust ports. This asymmetry may be compensated at some revs and loads, yet it cannot at a wide rev and load range.
The two long connecting rods at the sides of each cylinder are bridged at their small ends by a long pin (the wrist pin of the external piston) that makes the arrangement vulnerable to twisting of the external piston about its cylinder axis
The lower side of each manifold communicates with the upper side of the same manifold through two narrow “channels” between the cylinder and the long connecting rods. As a result, most of the gas-flow happens through the upper ports of the cylinder (asymmetrical flow) and the scavenging scheme is something between the uniflow-scavenging and the loop-scavenging, which is another necessary compromise for the OPOC.
Last, but not least, is the scavenging process, i.e. the most critical and power consuming process in a two-stroke engine. In the OPOC the scavenging is realized externally by a turbo-charger, not the ideal solution for engines that operate in a wide rev and load range.
The OPRE
Take now the OPOC engine, throw away the two internal pistons, throw away the four long connecting rods, throw away the two long and heavy piston pins and replace the unique multi-crank-pin crankshaft by a pair of single-crank-pin crankshafts located outside the pistons. What is left is the OPRE engine.
The OPRE needs not long connecting rods neither an opposed cylinder to be “vibration-free”. And its width is more than 30% smaller than an OPOC of the same piston stroke.
The combustion takes place at the slow dead center that provides a 30 to 40% additional time (as compared to the conventional engine) and a 20% additional time (as compared to the OPOC) to the fuel to get prepared and burned more efficiently. This extended piston dwell at the CDC allows a way higher rev range (it allows Direct Injection Diesels operating efficiently at 6000 rpm).
If the one combustion per crank rotation is not adequate, additional OPRE modules can be added in series to make a multicylinder OPRE engine.
By using the external side of the pistons (i.e. the wrist pin or cool side of the piston) as a “zero” cost, zero friction volumetric piston-type scavenging pump, the OPRE takes its final form. If the forced induction (turbo-charge) is desirable, it is OK for OPRE, because it can operate efficiently with and without turbo charging.
The integrated volumetric scavenging pumps of OPRE allow the operation either with symmetrical timing or with asymmetrical timing between the intake and the exhaust.
In the case of “divided load” applications, for instance when the OPRE is used as a range-extender with one electric generator on each crankshaft, its NVH properties are the best among the internal combustion engines (the Wankel rotary engine included). The OPRE range-extender is not only perfectly free of inertia vibrations, which is also true for the Wankel range-extenders, but it is also free from power pulses vibration on its mounds (supports) which is not the case for the Wankel range-extenders wherein each combustion into the Wankel rotary engine causes a reaction torque (power vibration) on its supports.
Another “divided load” application of the OPRE is the Portable Flyer. With a couple of counter-rotating propellers the reliable, lightweight, efficient and true vibration-free OPRE makes a Portable Flyer (presented at http://www.pattakon.com/pattakonFly.htm ) that can change the world. Yet we have to fly first, to prove it.
Despite what CEO Don Runkle (OPOC engine) claims, as compared to the OPOC engine the pattakon Opposed-piston-Pulling-Rod-Engine (OPRE engine) is: more compact, lighter, simpler, cheaper, is based on “built-in” scavenging pump of the piston type, has a wider rev range, is more vibration-free, provides additional time to the fuel to get prepared and burned more efficiently, has better lubrication, etc.
For more (videos of the OPRE prototypes running on Diesel fuel,
dimensions, weight etc): http://www.pattakon.com/pattakonOPRE.htm
Thanks
Manousos Pattakos