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August 22, 2007
FROM the outside, the dark blue Saturn Aura accelerating to a steady 50 miles an hour on the high-bank oval here at General Motors’ proving grounds looked altogether unremarkable, according to the New York Times.
From the driving position it’s another story. A laptop computer placed between me and a G.M. engineer, Jun Mo Kang, displays a graph that plots the car’s changing engine speed against the load on the engine, just colorful enough to draw my attention away from future cars and trucks in full disguises zipping by in the faster lanes of the track.
My time behind the wheel last month was the first test drive G.M. has given to a journalist of its prototype homogeneous-charge compression-ignition engine. An H.C.C.I. engine runs on a combustion process that researchers say holds the potential for significant gains in overall engine efficiency. G.M is one of several automakers developing H.C.C.I. technology.
Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth 
at 11:08 AM to Fuel economy
, GM
, Technology
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