Honda Aims for Hybrid Supremacy

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Honda Aims for Hybrid Supremacy
The Daily Auto Insider
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
October 2005

Honda may have developed a new hybrid system that could boost a Civic's fuel economy to as high as 65 miles on a gallon of gas, 30 percent better than the latest Civic hybrid, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Called "homogeneous-charge compression-ignition," or HCCI, the new technique ignites a gasoline-air mixture by compression — a process similar to that used in a diesel engine — rather than by spark ignition, the story said. Apparently, vehicles powered by gas HCCI engines could potentially offer the fuel economy of a diesel without its high emissions of nitrogen oxides and sooty particulates, and when combined with an electric motor, as are today's hybrids, fuel economy could be stretched even more.

But it's a challenge to make an HCCI engine run smoothly at very low and extremely high speeds because of the difficulty in controlling spontaneous combustion in those ranges, the story said.

But, citing Honda engineers who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the company has been able to get a prototype four-cylinder HCCI engine to run smoothly in a low- to medium-speed range, about 65 percent of the load range necessary to run a gasoline engine properly on the highway, and is working on making it run as well above 4,000 rpm.

Honda may show a "prototype" four-cylinder HCCI engine as early as next year, the story said.