# New engine. Your thoughts? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 13, 2005, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-engine-your-thoughts/312332 "2005-07-13T13:58:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-engine-your-thoughts/312332/1 "2005-07-13T13:58:32Z")
See flash animation near bottom of page: [http://www.quasiturbine.com/](http://www.quasiturbine.com/) Looks similar to a Wankel. This page describes the differences: [http://www.quasiturbine.com/ETheoryQTVersusWankel.htm](http://www.quasiturbine.com/ETheoryQTVersusWankel.htm) Do you think there’s any promise for this technology? Or is it hype? ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-engine-your-thoughts/312332/2 "2005-07-13T16:45:28Z")
I read through the Quasiturbine site, and they linked to a fistful of sites that explain what was left vague in the Q-site. I went to the How Stuff Works version. My opinion is that it might be workable, but I can see some potential problems. The first set of illustrations show a 4-part jointed rotor with no apparent driveshaft. That’s mysterious, but they go on to show a more complicated version, with roller carriages and a double-jointed link to a driveshaft. Each carriage has two wide rollers and a sliding seal between them. Despite all this rolling and wiping and rocking **inside the combustion chamber,** they claim there’s no need for oil. :dubious: At the edge of the multi-jointed rotor, they don’t quite explain how the seal against the endplates of the engine works, either. Their claim of continuous combustion “like a gas turbine” is bogus. It’s still “suck, squish, burn, spit” just like a piston engine. Their comparison to the Wankel rotary engine seems to favor the Wankel, not the QT. I count lots more moving parts and joints in the QT. ---
**Author:** ![Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Can_Handle_the_Truth)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-engine-your-thoughts/312332/3 "2005-07-15T21:29:54Z")
The future of transportation is the electric motor. Further improvements to the internal-combustion engine are a waste of time. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2005, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-engine-your-thoughts/312332/4 "2005-07-16T01:38:49Z")
- - - The Quasiturbine has too much wiping of complex parts, too much spinning inertia. The giveaway here is that they _aren’t selling them_. A small engine of this nature would not cost that much to build, but they know it wouldn’t work well and that would blow the whole plan out of the water. Consider that a 2-cycle weedwhacker can be bought for about $60 now, and a 4-cycle push mower for $150. So instead, they want more money you see, for more research, to do development, --well _sure_ they do. I’d like some money to do some development on bellybutton lint. Can anyone spare a few million dollars? > [@](#): > > …The future of transportation is the electric motor. Further improvements to the internal-combustion engine are a waste of time… - No, not really. Stationary uses of power can eaily directly use electricity produced from whatever means (coal, hydro, wind, ect) right now–it’s portable devices (like cars) that aren’t really workable. So in the future stationary electricity will be used to convert water into hydrogen+oxygen for auto fuel, and since the energy density of that hydrogen fuel is so low, you’ll still want a highly-eficient internal combustion engine. And that engine will _still_ probably be a piston engine, even 50 years from now. ~