I am quite close to the future of the industry, in particular the drive to "lower carbon". I have been to a number of conferences on the subject recently and the trends coming out are interesting.
For example there is a growing realisation that there is a big difference between "low tailpipe emissions" and whole life cycle "low carbon". The tail pipe only looks at the impact of the car on the road. Whole life cycle looks at production of the car, running it, producing and delivering the fuel and final disposal of the car. There has been an assumption that low carbon means inevitably electric cars...BUT studies by influential companies like Ricardo Engineering (sponsored by UK govt) have shown that the whole life cycle impact of an electric car is substantially affected by the method of electricity generation. They did a like by like comparison of a super efficient internal combustion diesel engine with added energy recovery hybrid compared against a pure electric car. This shows the electric car to be a hands down winner in France with its nuclear power. It is marginal as to which one is better in the UK. BUT in China (which is a major producer of CO2 and has a big pollution problem) the electric was MUCH worse than internal combustion!!! China has coal power..
I am interested in the "make me a smaller Plus 8 with 4 cylinder power" debate above. Why do we assume we need to "scale down" the size? What in fact is needed is to considerably scale down the weight. This is where Morgan is actually doing some very interesting industry leading research with materials like Magnesium and Carbon Fibre.. As I have said before the link with Oak Racing for LMP2 is giving them the access to Carbon technology....
With regard to engines then I think we may have seen the last non turbo Morgan. In the drive for efficiency then the days of big lazy V8's are unfortunately numbered. As we have seen by engines like the Ford Ecoboost range..smaller very efficient direct injection turbos are the way forward. These engines produce incredibly flat torque curves which in many ways give the same of even better drive-ability than lazy V8's whilst consuming far less fuel, less emissions and less car tax!! I am aware of a 1600cc turbo 4 that produces 200bhp with a torque curve flat from 1500rpm to 6500rpm!
Also into this pot you need to put energy recovery hybrid systems (some mechanical, some electric, some both) which can typically add another 30-50bhp across the range.
We must also not forget that diesels can on their own give better fuel economy and we can run them on our old cooking oil!!
So my crystal ball for the future Morgan would be:
- Same shape and size as the current cars e.g new Plus 8
- Much lighter..say 25-33% less by use of new materials
- As its lighter you need less engine for same performance
- Engine will be turbo, direct injection with hybrid energy recovery..
