As the environmental impact of global warming rose to the forefronts of our awareness, so consumer demands for greener methods of transportation rose to the top of the automotive industry’s list of priorities. 2008 saw many improvements in the lowering of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, and while car companies like Toyota paved the way with their groundbreaking Prius, every other company is chomping at their heels developing better, more efficient hybrids, creating cars which are leaning further and further away from their dependence on gasoline. The following are some of the most innovative technological leaps forward in our journey to put greener vehicles on the road.

Thermal Energy Recovery System (TERS)

We all remember when we first received those blue or green bins in our homes. We started rinsing our cans and milk containers, separating papers from plastics. For many of us recycling was the first step towards a greener future. Converting waste materials into valuable commodities to reduce the environmental impact remains at the heart of sustainable living, which is one reason why in November 2008 Heat2power, a France-based developer of waste heat regeneration technologies, won the Powertrain Innovation of the Year Award at the Professional Motorsport World Expo in Cologne with its Thermal Energy Recovery System (TERS). The company’s goal has been to create fuel savings and to reduce C02 emissions in tomorrow’s vehicles. By focusing their attention on the heat normally lost through the exhaust, they’ve managed to create a waste heat recovery (WHR) system which captures and redirects this heat to improve engine performance while lowering harmful emissions and improving fuel savings by 15-35% under all driving conditions. The unit is compact, lightweight, simple to implement, and requires little to no maintenance. To find out more about Heat2power’s award-winning technology visit here.

Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) Engines

Okay, so from what I’ve read and understood about fuel injection, I’m come to the conclusion that when it comes to going green, direct fuel injection technology is the way to go. As opposed to multi-point injection (MPI), where fuel is injected through the intake ports before entering the cylinders, GDI engines inject highly-pressurized fuel directly into the combustion chamber of each cylinder which not only increases engine performance, but also increases fuel efficiency while reducing CO2 emissions by as much as 25%. Companies like GM, Mercedes, and Volvo are introducing their new cars with directly fuelled engines, even Ford’s 2010 Mustang comes a twin turbo 3.5L “EcoBoost” engine, lowering emissions by 15% and increasing fuel efficiency by 20% thanks to direct injection technology.

In fact during last year’s “Engineer Technology +Innovation Awards” in the UK, project HOTFIRE took first prize in the automotive sector when they designed a gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine concept that reduces fuel consumption by 15%. Made up of engine designers from Lotus Engineering, fuel injection specialists from Continental Powertrain and thermodynamics and mechanics experts from University College London and Loughborough University, the team achieved a final product with “direct injection spark ignition engine architecture that does not require stratified lean burn combustion to achieve the approximate 15% fuel savings. This ensures that the system can be used over all speed/load ranges and eliminates the need for an expensive lean NOx trap which is usually required when lean combustion is employed.” I don’t fully understand what that means, but it sounds awesome.

Nanowire Batteries

While many feared that GM was a something of the past, they released what promises to be the vehicle of the future. They are ironically the same company that tried to squash the electric car, but they’re making huge strides towards redeeming themselves with the new Chevrolet Volt. The plug-in electric hybrid features a revolutionary propulsion system that permits the car to cover over 64 km without using any gas whatsoever (the average Canadian commutes 67km to and from work). Of course for longer distances the car runs on a gas tank, which serves to recharge its batteries rather than running its engine. Which brings us to the heart, literally, of the electric car: the battery.

Keeping the batteries charged for as long as possible is the ultimate goal for any electric care company. Electric cars use rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, known as Li-ion batteries. Well, Dr. Yi Cui and his colleagues at Stanford University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering have discovered a method to increase the charge of Li-ion batteries tenfold! In an article written by Dan Stober of the Stanford News Service, he describes how Dr. Yi Cui employs nanotechnology to give batteries ten time more juice:

The electrical storage capacity of a Li-ion battery is limited by how much lithium can be held in the battery’s anode, which is typically made of carbon. Silicon has a much higher capacity than carbon, but also has a drawback.

Silicon placed in a battery swells as it absorbs positively charged lithium atoms during charging, then shrinks during use (i.e., when playing your iPod) as the lithium is drawn out of the silicon. This expand/shrink cycle typically causes the silicon (often in the form of particles or a thin film) to pulverize, degrading the performance of the battery.

Cui’s battery gets around this problem with nanotechnology. The lithium is stored in a forest of tiny silicon nanowires, each with a diameter one-thousandth the thickness of a sheet of paper. The nanowires inflate four times their normal size as they soak up lithium. But, unlike other silicon shapes, they do not fracture.

So far we’ve only been looking under the hood for innovations in automotive greenery, now its time to check out the body.

The Lotus Eco Elise

In their attempt to produce the greenest car in the neighborhood, Lotus not only focused on CO2 emissions during the operation of the vehicle, but also at the emissions required to produce the vehicle. For their body panels and spoilers they used a hemp composite material instead of the traditional carbon fiber (one can’t help but wonder if this idea was inspired by the Weed-mobile from Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke). The car was painted using water-based paint, the seats are covered with dye-free biodegradable woolen fabrics, and the carpets are made from sisal, a plant where no chemical fertilizers are used during farming. At their Hethel England headquarters they recycle 57% of their waste and have been able to reduce electricity consumption by 14%, gas 30% and water 11% from their 2006 levels.

But make no mistake, the fine folks over at Lotus have also kept sustainability in mind when working on the car’s performance. Using as many lightweight materials as possible they’ve managed to shave approximately 100lbs of fat off the car making it more fuel efficient, while installing solar panels in the roof to help generate usable energy during the car’s operation. According to an article at http://greenupgrader.com Lotus is also developing a “Tri-fuel” engine that would run on gas, ethanol or methanol.