IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 28

Winners  &  losers 2007 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

34

Engine
Silverio Bonfiglioli of Magneti Marelli in Brazil

the omnivoRous

Brazilian fuel control system lets cars run on gasoline,
ethanol, and natural gas

T

he hot asphalt of the test track special little vehicle. When it comes to fuel, it is
stretches ahead. I stomp on the the most flexible car on earth. The Siena carries
accelerator of the Fiat Siena and both natural gas and a mixture of gasoline and
shift swiftly through the gears. ethanol. It will burn the natural gas-the cheapThe en g i ne roa rs, t he w i nd est car fuel in Brazil-while cruising, and it will
whooshes. A flock of quero-quero birds lazing switch on the fly to the liquid fuel mix whenever
nearby in the scorching Brazilian sun
it needs more power, for examshriek in protest.
ple, when passing another car
You'd never know it
or going up a hill.
by looking at this peppy
And here's the best part:
white sedan-or even by
you can put any mixture of
n
io
t
ta
driving it-but it is one
gasoline and ethanol into its
transpor

IEEE Spectrum | January 2007 | NA

C

Winner

www.spectrum.ieee.org

IlluStrAtIoN: SEAN mccAbE; orIgINAl photo: rENAtA urSAIA

Even if terrafugia meets
its goals, the air expressways
of Back to the Future and
"the Jetsons" will remain the
stuff of daydreams. boeing
and NASA have independently analyzed the feasibility
of personal air vehicles and
each concluded that a wider
problem hinders individual air
travel: the absence of support
structures to make increased
traffic safe and reliable.
"After an initial look at
designing a vehicle, we
decided we were missing
the big picture," says lynne
Wenberg, a senior manager
at boeing's phantom Works
research division in Seattle.
more traffic at small airports
necessitates more air traffic management, control
towers, and systems to help
lower-skilled pilots land in
bad weather. NASA aviation
expert bruce holmes argues
that small airports would
have to undergo a massive,
government-supported
update. "this is really not
going to be a one-company
development," holmes says.
At the moment, however,
the u.S. National highway
traffic Safety Administration
holds sway over terrafugia's
future. If the agency decides
the transition is sufficiently
carlike, terrafugia will have to
comply with crashworthiness
standards that would add
weight to the car and further
complicate the design, potentially dooming it.
rather than abandon
the light-sport aircraft idea,
dietrich says he would
resort to a three-wheeled
version, to be classified as a
motorcycle, which has looser
safety requirements. Some
aircraft designers, including
NASA's holmes, actually prefer
the idea of a flying tricycle,
because it is less likely to
become mired in traffic safety
restrictions. but dietrich is
reluctant to move in that direction, hoping to keep the vehicle
in a more familiar shape.
For the time being, the flying car stays tethered to the
shop, a clunky compromise
whose time may never come.
-Sandra Upson


http://www.spectrum.ieee.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum January, 2007

IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - Cover1
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - Cover2
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 1
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 2
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 3
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 4
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 5
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 6
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 7
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 8
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 9
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 10
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 11
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 12
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 13
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 14
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 15
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 16
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 17
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 18
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 19
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 20
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 21
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 22
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 23
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 24
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 25
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 26
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 27
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 28
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 29
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 30
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 31
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 32
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 33
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 34
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 35
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 36
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 37
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 38
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 39
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 40
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 41
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 42
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 43
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 44
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 45
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 46
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 47
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 48
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 49
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 50
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - 51
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - Cover3
IEEE Spectrum January, 2007 - Cover4
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