Lotus Exige Aims at Running on CO2 Fuel
By Bill Siuru
The slippery-looking Lotus Exige has one purpose in life, that that’s to provide the kind of fun-to-drive experience that sports car lovers, well … love. Now, Britain’s Lotus Engineering has developed the Lotus Exige 270E Tri-fuel that can run on any blend of gasoline, bioethanol, or methanol. Designed to ultimately run on synthetic methanol produced from carbon dioxide taken from the air, this could ultimately be a carbon neutral vehicle.
Mike Kimberley, Group Lotus CEO, says, “At present, the motor industry is seeking a route to reduce CO2 emissions just at the tailpipe. This focus is far too narrow. A sustainable alcohol such as synthetic methanol has the potential to reduce the overall CO2 footprint of internal combustion vehicles towards zero.”
Besides looking for ways to reduce its carbon footprint, Lotus is interested in the performance improvement offered by alcohol fuels, especially methanol. Methanol’s higher octane rating allows higher compression ratios without knocking. Also, the vaporization characteristics of methanol, as well as ethanol, provide strong charge-cooling effects.
This translates to better performance in spark-ignition engines. Indeed, the Top Alcohol class of drag racers uses methanol. Thus, it no surprise that the Exige 270E Tri-
fuel is the most powerful road version of the Exige to date. This four-cylinder, 1.8-liter 2ZZ-GE VVTL-i engine has peak power of 270 horsepower at 8000 rpm and 184 lb-ft
of torque at 5500 rpm. This is a 19 percent increase in horsepower and 14 percent increase in torque over the 2ZZ-GE VVTL-i running on gasoline.
The Exige 270E Tri-fuel features a Roots-type supercharger and air-to-air intercooler package from the Exige S. Lotus has found that methanol is an ideal fuel for both turbocharging and supercharging. Bottom-line: the lightweight Exige 270E Tri-fuel can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 3.88 seconds and has a top speed of 158 mph.
Though not yet done on a commercial scale, producing methanol from CO2 is well understood and demonstrated, at least on a prototype level. There are currently many CO2-to-methanol research programs underway and some experts believe a “methanol economy” is more viable than a “hydrogen economy.” A big advantage of methanol over hydrogen is that synthetic methanol can be stored, transported, and retailed in much the same way as today’s gasoline and diesel fuels. Even so, Lotus says that supply infrastructure investment from governments and fuel companies could take 15 to 20 years to make CO2-derived fuel commercially viable.
It’s worth noting that alcohol fuels can be used in current gasoline engines without significant modifications. For the Exige 270E Tri-fuel these include sensors to detect alcohol content, modifications to engine management control software, and higher flow rate fuel pump and injectors. Fuel lines and the fuel tank must also be made of materials compatible with the more corrosive methanol.
Lotus Engineering sees sustainable alcohols as the third step in a process toward carbon neutral driving. The first is the current use of E85 ethanol, which provides valuable experience with respect to infrastructure for handling alcohol fuels. The second step is the use of bioethanol fuels made from non-food feedstocks like biomass waste and crops like switchgrass that are grown specifically for fuel. The third step would be the use of sustainable alcohols such as synthetic methanol, with the ultimate move to methanol in direct methanol fuel cells.
Want to know more about alternative fuel sports cars? Be sure to check out these articles on GreenCar.com:
Lightning High Performance Electric Sports Car
Mazda RX-8 Hydrogen Rotary Engine Sports Car
Flexing Ford Mustang Muscle with an E85 Performance Car
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