Remember the Jaguar that starred in Spectre, part of the James Bond series of films? The Jaguar C-X75 (named after the anniversary of the company) never made it to production even though it was a leading light in new (at the time) plugin hybrid propulsion systems - that concept ended up reaching the market via Ferrari with their LaFerrari and track based FXX-K models. The … [Read more...]
Rack and Pinion Steering
Rack and Pinion Steering on cars is one of those inventions that appeared early on in the life of the automobile and was taken from another source. Many early components on cars started out life being used by other machines before being enhanced and evolving into something far more complex. The simplest explanation of how it works is that the steering column has a classical … [Read more...]
The Duke Engine
We have been meaning to write an article about the Duke Engine for quite a while and our schedule has prevented us from doing so, which is a pity because this is an important topic for future transportation services - and it is a southern hemisphere invention! The Duke Engine has been developed out of Auckland in New Zealand and is an axial engine which in the early days was … [Read more...]
Using Plastic Waste to Create a Diesel-type Fuel
Over the last few weeks there has been a lot of discussion in the mainstream media about the volume of waste humans produce. Part of the discussion centres around the fact that both India and China are now stopping imports of other countries waste products. To make it worse, humans are still consuming lots of products wrapped in plastic and have no desire to slow down that … [Read more...]
Jatropha Plants
I am one of those old fashioned people who believes that the internal combustion engine still has life in it, not necessarily with carbon-based fuels like petrol or diesel, but with bio-diesels from plants or waste products. In several news items over the past few years I have spoken about the possible use of Jatropha as a source of bio-diesel and is actually the name of a … [Read more...]