Originally posted by Elfie
Thats not really novel, or new. Cadillac tryed that back in th '80s with a V8. The engine would use as few as 4 cylinders or up to all 8 depending on the power demands.
Ya beat me to it Elfie. Those 8-6-4 engines were crap, so will the new ones. Think of how complicated it is rearrainging the spark, fuel, intake and exhaust valves to operate on a different set of pistons while on the fly. Even if you do make it fire right, you are wasting inertia on pistons not in use. There's just too many things that can go wrong that will cause catastrophic failure.
I remember watching a news report in the 70's where a guy patented a new carburator. He took a '74 Ford LTD with 1 gallon of gas in an external tank and drove it from Dallas to St. Louis. You never heard about him again, some oil or car company bought the rights to it and buried it. The technology is out there, the big companies are just not ready to let you have access to it.
It's just like the ethanol thing going on now. They have finally started using ethanol widespread, but it's corn ethanol. Ethanol from sugar beets is 5 times more efficient than corn ethanol and is cheaper to produce, but the sugar beet lobby doesn't have the muscle the corn lobby does (can you say Archer-Daniels-Midland?). You know ADM well, they are the same folks that have you ingesting high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar in sodas, candy and just about any commercially produced food. They also run those warm and fuzzy feel good commercials during the Sunday morning political shows... coincidence?
If we are going to make a serious switch from petroleum, we need to use the most efficient alternative, not the one most heavily lobbied.
