Maybe I’m wrong but here are a few suggestions for making cars better.

Stirling vs. Alternators

In modern automotives the alternator uses energy off the engine to generate electricity to power the radio, A/C, etc.  The alternator sucks horsepower off the engine in order to create this electricity.

What about the Stirling engine?

The Stirling engine is a piston engine driven by an external heat source.  Internal combustion engines have a lot of waste heat that can be captured.  The radiator and exhaust are 2 obvious examples.  Current Stirling designs have reported efficienies of 18%.  Alternators are most likely 90% or more but they require power directly from the engine.

Stirlings have a lower efficiency but convert otherwise wasted energy.  Alternators are robust and realiable.  Stirlings are unproven but can be designed to be small.  Several, possibly more than a dozen, can be placed at convenient places around the engine.  Designed properly they could be swappable such that if one Stirling fails it can be replaced easily and without loss of electricity generation.

Airplane Nozzles vs. Electronic temperature control

The most recent trend in air conditioning and heating in luxury cars is to provide electronic control for each side of the car and in some cases it seems like control is provided for each passenger.  On airplanes each passenger has their own control through a simple nozzle.

So why do we need electronic control that can fail when a simple nozzle would suffice?

Clean Energy: The Sterling Engine

A while back I came across the Sterling engine.  The Sterling engine takes waste heat and turns it into piston motion.  Obviously if it moves we can generate electricity from the motion.

The main problem with Sterlings is the efficiency of the power extraction.  Using waste heat the available energy for extraction is significantly less than the original fuel.

Wind Turbines and Controls

Wind turbines faced a similar energy extraction problem.  The folks at NREL chose some advanced controls to extract the maximum amount of energy from the available wind.  With wind there isn’t a consistent energy source and maximizing its extraction is key to making the technology economically viable.

Controls…

The available energy for extraction is small.  Like the wind turbines, Sterlings need control to maximize the energy extraction.

Thoughts?