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The obvious reason for the benefit of the Turbo is that you get more power from a smaller (and lighter) engine. The not so obvious but more important one is this: A Turbo engine will run without boost relatively optimized at a lower horsepower output. We as customers ask for cars that are powerful in acceleration but in truth we tend to run most of the time at a low power requirement. When you drive along the highway you may only be using 20 or 30 hp. The trouble is that especially gasoline engines at that level are not running in an efficient field and in most cases the throttle is almost closed. This closed throttle creates a vacuum. The vacuum in turn creates artificial restriction or "pumping losses". In a turbo engine you essentially have a smaller engine that runs a less restricted throttle at low power and gets its maximum power with over atmospheric boost. This allows for a more optimized engine at low power requirement while still giving the peak. This is especially important with gasoline cars and while most have only been tuned for performance we will see more and more variable vein (adjustable) Turbos for this dual mode application. In a diesel it is not as important because the Diesel does not run with a throttle but only with metering fuel... They do not have pumping losses as such like the gasoline cousin. However they need compression to get ignition so the boost is nice. There is another overlooked feature of the Diesel... There is 15% more energy in the fuel per BTU by volume so it stands to reason it gets better mileage. The BTU content and the lack of pumping losses is the reason for the Diesel being more efficient. We at Edison2 did win the XP on a gasoline car with a turbo and extreme exhaust gas recirculation. This means that instead of closing the throttle (and creating a vacuum) we just injected exhaust and let it act as inert gas. This way we were able to run with little vacuum at 5.3 hp at 60 mph while delivering 40 hp for acceleration on full turbo boost with no exhaust gas recirculation. This exhaust trick with turbo will be the future of the gas engine... The other trick is - if you can disconnect 1/2 of the crankshaft. Right now Edison2 is developing a 2+2 boxer engine with Turbo that runs on 2 or 4 cylinders depending on demand. The total engine is 660 CC and can be tuned all the way to 100 hp which in the Edison2 VLC gives you 100 mpg in the EPA drive-cycle but also Porsche performance. We are looking for corporate development partners.
On the electric mileage ; Yes the VLC electric gives you +2.5 times the number in the EPA cycle but that is misleading. Electric cars have great numbers because the way the measurements are done. In certain circumstances they are better and in others they are worse. We built the electric VLC because it clearly demonstrates the superiority of our 4 seat platform over all others. In the end a car is efficient if it is easy to push the box... low mass and low aerodynamic drag are the only main virtues... We do see the electric here to stay but only if the manufacturers embrace a new box similar to what we propose. The batteries are otherwise too expensive or the charge times too long. VW with the NILS and Audi with the Urban Concept are supporting this direction as are others like BMW I drive or Opel One. It is time to change the box. It is also time to reconfigure the Internal combustion engine and that is why we will see the turbo reign supreme. Or, like in our new engine, even a three mode engine. The electric has the great advantage of just rolling along and not having such a drastic sweet spot... Although we are also finding that counter to some manufacturer's limited knowledge even there are sweet spots.... The truly great opportunity lies in the fact that most of this is in its infant stage and there is a lot of work to be done on all fronts when you embrace this rethinking and there is a lot of room for improvement.... There should be a new automotive revolution here... We can and eventually will reduce our fuel consumption from transportation by a factor of 2.5 plus as well as the pollution. It is just a question of when and that is driven by the public having to ask for it because large legacy corporations will not easily dismiss all they know and all they have. It is up to the consumers...