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Click above for a high-res gallery of the Lotus Exige 270E Tri-Fuel

Lotus Engineering has been hard at work developing new engine technologies that allow the use of sustainable alcohol fuels. It's recent Exige 270E Tri-Fuel concept showed that the British firm knows how to make an engine run on various fuels, including gasoline, ethanol and methanol. In fact, the 270E Tri-Fuel concept was the most powerful Exige ever conceived by the Hethel-based company and made its highest power output using synthetic methanol fuel. Lotus has started a new research project called the OMNIVORE engine -- cleverly indicating that it will run on anything -- that uses a single cylinder with direct injection and a variable compression ratio in order to maximize power and efficiency while running on various alcohol fuels. The higher octane rating of alcohol fuels will allow the engine to run with higher compression, thereby offering more power, while also toning itself down to run on lower-grade fuels as well. Read the press release after the break for more details.


[Source: Lotus]

Click above for a high-res gallery of the Lotus Exige 270E Tri-Fuel

While assorted activists, politicians and random individuals carry on about the spectres of global warming, imported oil, CO₂ emissions and other issues that combine to create timetable-free doomsday scenarios, there are people working on potential solutions that do not involve us driving around four-wheeled Segway scooters. That's right: the "dreaded" internal combustion engine might yet provide the answer -- or at least an answer. And because Lotus is the entity searching for the answer in this particular case, the end result might not only be green -- it looks ridiculously fun, too.

The car you see here is the Geneva-bound Lotus Exige 270E Tri-Fuel concept, the successor to 2006's Exige 265E, which made 265 horses running on E85. The 270E goes a step further. Not only can it run on gasoline or ethanol, it achieves its peak output -- 270 horsepower and 184 lb-ft -- on methanol, hence the Tri-Fuel label. Incidentally, that power figure is the highest yet for an Exige coming out of Hethel. Even more interesting, however, is Lotus' research into producing carbon-neutral synthetic methanol. You can read about it in detail after the jump, but in summary, the process involves using atmospheric CO₂ and reacting it with hydrogen created via renewable electrical power to create methanol. Liquid methanol could be transported and distributed much in the same way gasoline is now, making for a feasible infrastructure if the idea were to take hold somewhere down the line.

Lotus is also hunting for solutions involving EVs, as well as optimizing the traditional gasoline-powered ICE through its Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Group. One must admit, however, that the idea of a sustainable, synthetic, carbon-neutral fuel driving internal combustion engines with the same levels of power we currently enjoy is the equivalent of having your cake and eating it. Press on, Lotus.


[Source: Lotus via AutoblogGreen]