For those of you riding the euphoria around the hopes and dreams of the electric car battery, an article from page one of Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung warning you not to hold your breath. The internal combustion engine is going to dominate the engine market for at least another 20 years.

But you can breathe easier. Until that great day when the world can discard thier fossil fuel-burning vehicles, the solution is in alternative internal combustion technologies.

The Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine is one technology that will get the world’s engines to better fuel efficiency in a less polluting manner. And early studies are showing that while the engine will have significant gains in efficiency, it will produce up to 80 percent less NOx than the current hybrid and conventional vehicles on the road today.

Read the full article in German here. (English version to be posted here soon…)

As the debate continues around the merits and drawbacks of the electric hybrid battery, here’s an article from Manager Magazin in Germany that discusses the use of diesel engines and their continued dominance over hybrid engines through 2015.

From the article:

Hybrids work only for Niches
How does the next generation powertrain look like considering today’s oil prices? Bosch does not believe in a victory of the hybrid concepts, since these cars are in need of carrying two engines on board. And Opel as well does not believe in a fast adoption of electric vehicles. This raises hope for the Diesel.

The automotive supplier Bosch is convinced that the hybrid technology will only succeed in a niche for a long time. In contrast will diesel and gasoline engines be the dominant powertrains fort he next 10 years.

This has told Bernd Bohr, Global Head of Automotive at Bosch, the German car magazine “Auto Motor Sport”. “In the year 2015 we project 2.0mn to 3.0mn new cars with hybrid powertrains and 800,000 plug-in electric vehicles.” The amount of new cars to be sold in 2015 is forecasted at 80mn vehicles: “The percentage of gasoline and diesel engines will stay significantly above those of hybrid & electric cars.”, Mr Bohr is cited. Bosch also predicts that the global market shares of Diesels will rise by 5% to 28% until 2015.
Also plug-in hybrid vehicles that are charged via socks are no ideal solution. A hybrid powertrain remains very heavy and expensive, says Bohr: “You have on board a complete combustion engine plus exhaust treatment system, tank and the electric infrastructure like electric power device and the battery“

Despite the strong rise in prices for diesel, Bohr does not see stagnating demand for diesel cars. In markets like France has the percentage of diesel cars has even recently risen from 70% to 80% because of the newly introduced CO2 tax. Diesel engines have a 30% better mileage compared to gasoline cars and therefore tops even gasoline hybrids. The CO2 saving goals of the European Union are only achievable according to Bohr: “if diesel cars at least remain on the 50% mark in new vehicle sales in Europe”….

For the full article, click here.

The Scuderi Group has secured patent protection for five more inventions of The Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine technology. This enhances The Scuderi Group’s global patent portfolio to more than 62 pending and 35 issued in more than 50 countries.

Five core technologies that The Scuderi Group recently patented worldwide:

In the following Scuderi Group podcast, Scuderi Group Vice President and Patent Attorney Stephen Scuderi talks to Tim Allik of Topaz Partners about this latest patent news:

Subscribe to the Scuderi Group Podcast

To read the complete media release about the patent announcement, click here.

Here’s a YouTube version of the June 12, 2008 profile of the Scuderi Group and its Air-Hybrid Engine on CBS 3 in Springfield, available on the Scuderi Group’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/ScuderiGroup.

By Lutz Deyerling
VP European Operations, Scuderi Group

The overall worldwide automotive (and engine market) is undergoing a major change unlike ever before. This change affects all players in the market, OEM´s, suppliers, new technologies, consumers and investors. There has been shocking news about the US OEM´s every day. Yesterday, for example, for the first time an analyst from Merrill Lynch said that one of the top three automakers could go bankrupt soon.

Scuderi European Vice President Lutz Deyerling addresses the crowd gathered to view the first model of the Air-Hybrid Engine at the 2008 Engine Expo in Stuttgart, Germany in May.

Wednesday’s auto news was a parade of negative earnings reports, mostly based on consumer reaction to rising fuel costs and engine inefficiency. In June, one US OEM lost 18% in sales, another 28%, while yet another big manufacturer went down 36%. Many have serious problems – none of them are able to cut costs fast enough to keep up with the cash drain. (Double digit millions of dollars daily!). This phenomenon is driven by the fact that US drivers are now shifting away from SUV´s and pick-up-trucks and seriously looking for smaller and more fuel efficient vehicles – which almost none of the US OEM´s have in their portfolio. This is a really dangerous scenario and could end in a vicious circle.

The Financial Times Germany, who has been running an editorial series called “the future of the automobile” also writes this in a recent article, the last sentence stating: “Maybe in the future they will say, these were the years, where afterwards nothing was as it had been before.”

Read the story here.

In Germany, a major discussion about electric vehicles and batteries started last week with an article about a study from Professor Dudenhoefer, who heads the well known CAR (Center of Automotive Research) at the University of Gelsenkirchen:

The article states: “A huge revolution, the end of gasoline and diesel vehicles”. From 2010 onwards, electric and hybrid vehicles will replace vehicles with internal combustion engines.

There have been several reactions on this article – for example also the CEO of Volkswagen, Prof. Winterkorn said: “the future of the automobile is the battery”. The “hype” culminated in a 16 pages article (which also was the top story) in Germany´s Wirtschaftswoche, a highly respected business magazine.

But as the article also states, many of these OEMs, suppliers and others are finding themselves having to look “Green” and environmentally friendly, even when they aren’t…

And even with all the hype around the electric hybrid vehicle, some companies are strategically separating themselves from that specific technology. Honda Corp., for example, has made that decision.

A time of change of this magnitude creates an even bigger opportunity to address the immediate benefits of the air-hybrid engine technology. While we continue to further licensing talks with many of the major OEMs around the world, the first gasoline prototype is on schedule to be completed by the end of the year. There is currently historical interest in the Scuderi Air-Hybrid Engine, which would give OEMs tremendous relief in several areas: