EcoMotors may give gas & combustion engines new life with OPOC

Broadly speaking there are two main groups when it comes to innovating in the green energy space, and at times they mesh together. (1) those who want to displace current energy production using fossil fuels with something else entirely and (2) those who focus on making the existing system much more efficient. EcoMotors is in the second camp – it claims it can build a combustion engine that’s twice as efficient as conventional engines.

As with many companies pursuing a disruptive technology, EcoMotors needed working capital to get there. It seems to have two firm believers because they are the exclusive investors in EcoMotors’ series B funding: Bill Gates and Khosla Ventures. The key value proposition EcoMotors discusses is energy density, which certainly isn’t a new idea when it comes to combustion engines.

Engineers have worked to pack more power into a smaller form factor in vehicles for a long time but EcoMotors claims to have discovered a breakthrough. Most of its efficiency gain is due to an innovation in the two stroke-stroke engine, which “. . . delivers a power pulse with every revolution of the crankshaft, as opposed to the four-stroke engine which fires each cylinder on every other revolution,” via GreenCarReports.

Beyond the power efficiency, EcoMotors also claims its engine requires half as many parts, and is half the weight and size of a traditional combustion engine. That means the car requires less energy to accelerate and decelerate, and there is less heat to diffuse. It also means building cars with this engine would be more efficient and require fewer raw materials.

Here are a few benefits to greater power density from EcoMotors:

• Lower weight
• Smaller size
• Lower material costs
• Lower friction
• Greater fuel efficiency
• Lower emissions
• Lower heat rejection

Not bad! Now if the price stays reasonable for an average income earner this could make a measurable impact on our collective carbon footprint.