FuelVapor Technologies Designs for the Automotive X-Prize

FuelVapor Technologies has shown the technology it plans to use to capture an Automotive X-Prize, a competition with multi-million dollar prizes for the fastest car that gets over 100 miles per gallon. Entered in the alternative category requiring only two-passenger capacity, the company’s innovative three-wheel Alé carries two in tandem. The mainstream category requires four seats.

Power delivered to the front two wheels comes from a modified 1.5-liter, four-cylinder Honda engine. The turbocharged, two-stage single cam VTEC engine produces 180 horsepower. To achieve its super-high mpg goals, FuelVapor Technologies has developed a sophisticated electronic gasoline vapor fuel management system that vaporizes the gasoline, allowing the engine to run with extremely lean air-fuel ratios.

How important is this? Compared to most gasoline engines that operate on a 14.7:1 air-to-fuel ratio, FuelVapor’s patent pending system can run on a ratio of over 20:1. The vaporized mixture is delivered to the front of the stock throttle body. During light-duty cruising, the engine's regular fuel injectors are shut off and the engine runs only on the vapors.

Currently, the system appears to be optimized for performance, so the company claims “only” 92 mpg on regular gasoline. For example, the 1400 pound, 174-inch long car can accelerate from 0-60 mpg in under 5 seconds and has an electronically limited top speed of 140 mph. It achieves super-low emissions without a catalytic converter and CO2 emissions are reduced by 30 percent.

The car’s aerodynamically efficient design uses a hand-layed fiberglass composite body over a full tube frame with roll cage. Other features include a Honda CRX-based adjustable coilover spring front suspension, single-sided swing arm with fully adjustable coilover spring rear suspension, Porsche 911 rack-and-pinion steering, and disc brakes on all three wheels. All this comes together to allow the Alé to easily pull 1.7 g’s in corners…on street tires. Plans are for limited production of Alés to begin in 2008.