THE  CAR  ENGINE  OF  TOMORROW:  CLEANER,  LIGHTER,  WITH  ONE  MOVING  PART  Aquarius Engines is developing a super-efficient, 22-pound gasoline engine, asstartups, auto makers and researchers reimagine the more than century-oldtechnologyAUTHOR  SARA  TOTH  STUB    UPDATED  JUNE  20,  2019  9:57  AM  ET  ROSH HAAYIN, Israel—Back in 2014, Shaul Yaakoby was spending his days assessingdamaged vehicles for insurance companies. He spent his nights in a Tel Aviv-areamachine shop cutting and assembling pieces of aluminum. The self-described inventor,a high-school dropout who grew up on an Israeli communal citrus farm and spent thelast 25 years as an insurance assessor, has several patents for products ranging from awater purification system to a theft-proof car key. Now, he is seeking to make a light,cheap and efficient car engine—one that runs on significantly less fuel and producesfewer polluting emissions than what’s available today.
“When you feel you have the idea for something big, you just have to do it,” Mr.
Yaakoby said. “So I bought a block of aluminum and cut it by hand to build my engine.”After several months of work, he took his product to his business partners, GalFridman, a technology-marketing veteran, and Ariel Gorfung, an industrial engineer.
They founded Aquarius Engines Ltd. in 2014 to bring Mr. Yaakoby’s super-efficientgasoline-powered engine to the increasingly environmentally conscious automotivemarket. Now on its fifth-generation machine, the company has successfully tested itsengine in the lab, though not in cars.
Aquarius, named for the perfect future imagined in the hit song, “The Age of Aquarius,”has raised more than $25 million, including from executives at Mobileye, the Israeliautonomous-vehicle technology startup acquired byIntel Corp. in 2017, and employs 42people in Israel, Germany and Poland. The company expects its product to hit themarket in the next two years, with applications from cars to electricity generators todrones.Aquarius Engines expects its product to hit the market in the next two years. From left to right: Gal Fridman,chairman and chief marketing officer; Maya Gonik, head of business development; and Ariel Gorfung, chiefexecutive, at the company’s headquarters outside Tel Aviv. PHOTO: DAVID KATZ  Aquarius is not alone in betting on a revamped internal combustion engine.
Automakers are under pressure from governments and consumers to build cars thatgive off lower carbon emissions. At the same time, battery-powered electric vehicleshave limitations, including production cost, range limitations and the need forinfrastructure, like the production of electricity to charge them. Sales of electric vehicleshave been growing about 60% a year globally, but they make up less than 5% of new carsales in most markets, and auto makers lose money on them, according to a Marchreport from McKinsey & Co. “When the electric vehicle came around, everyone washoping that will solve the problem, but it’s not that simple,” said John B. Heywood, aprofessor emeritus of mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technologywho studies cleaner energy and transportation.  

After years of considering the internal combustion engine out of date, some startups,car makers and academic researchers are working to improve the century-oldtechnology. Internal combustion engines will make up 40% of the global car market by2030, while 23% of cars sold will have engines that use both electricity and burn otherfuel, like gasoline, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. report. “Now it seems that theinternal combustion engine has a bright future, with vast potential of efficiencyimprovement and emission reductions,” said Leonid Tartakovsky, head of the internalcombustion engines laboratory at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology.
Mazda Motor Corp. said that in the fall it will ship its first cars with Skyactiv-X, anignition system that the company says can improve efficiency by 20% to 30% in somedriving situations, and is developing additional models.Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. said in2018 that it had started producing cars with variable compression ratio-engines, whichthe company says cut fuel consumption by about 30%. More auto makers are usingturbochargers, which reuse wasted heat, and engines that shut off while cars are idling.
Toyota Motor Co.’s research-and-development subsidiary is developing a free-pistonengine. (A company spokeswoman declined to give details.)San Diego-based Achates Power Inc. is collaborating with the enginecompany Cummins Inc. to develop a lightweight opposed-piston engine for U.S.
military combat vehicles. Achates also said it is working with another company tointegrate an opposed-piston engine, developed with the help of a $9 million grant fromthe U.S. Department of Energy, into a pickup truck. Pinnacle Engines, based in SanCarlos, Calif., designs engines for scooter, motorcycle, automotive and industrial use,and is focused on the Asian market, according to its website.  

The latest version of the Aquarius engine weighs 22 pounds; a typical engine weighs250 pounds. It has just one moving part—a piston that slides back and forth—comparedto at least 20 found under the hood of your average car, though it generates only 43horsepower. It requires 20% less fuel than the average internal combustion car engine,said Mr. Yaakoby, who is chief technology officer at Aquarius. Further adjustments tothe fuel-injection system could increase that difference to 30%, he said. Because there isno friction between the piston and the engine parts, it does not require lubrication,eliminating the need for oil and reducing maintenance costs.
The engine is a free-piston linear engine, which means that it produces electricity whenit burns fuel, rather than producing rotational energy like a typical car engine. Theelectricity can be used as the primary energy source to power a motor in a traditionalcar, or it can be used as a range extender or backup charger for a battery-poweredelectric car, the company said. “Whether it’s as the engine of the car itself or as a batterycharger, there will be a place for it,” said Mr. Fridman, the company’s chief marketingofficer.  

The latest version of the Aquarius engine weighs 22 pounds and has just one moving part—a piston thatslides back and forth. PHOTO: DAVID KATZFree-piston engines date to the early 20th century, and were used to power generatorson ships. By the 1950s, diesel engines had replaced most of them in the marine sector,said Tony Roskilly of Newcastle University, who researches free-piston engines. “Nowthere’s been a spike of interest in them again,” he said.
The main challenge for linear-piston engines is the lack of fine control of the fuelinjection and exhaust escape processes, which often results in higher levels of unburnedhydrocarbons in the exhaust—something regulators are also trying to reduce, saidGregory W. Davis, director of the Advanced Engine Research Lab at KetteringUniversity in Flint, Mich.
“But if they can use computer technology to overcome this, and control the gas and airflow, then we could see cars moving over to these types of engines,” Mr. Davis said.
“The potential for increased efficiency is really good.” Additional cylinders, each with apiston sliding back and forth, would increase horsepower, he said.
Still, an improved internal combustion engine is not a panacea. “The internalcombustion engine, even with major improvements on it, cannot get to the levels thatregulators want,” said Russell Hensley, head of McKinsey’s Center for Future Mobility.
“That’s why we see the investment in electric vehicles.” At least nine countries haveannounced future bans on sales of diesel and gasoline engines, and many more,including the U.S., have offered incentives, such as free parking and tax breaks, forowners of battery-powered vehicles. Many auto executives say they believe gasolineengines have reached their maximum efficiency and are now shifting more resourcesinto electric cars to meet tougher emissions rules.
Another major hurdle to switching car-engine designs or shapes is that auto makerswould have to redesign their assembly lines and cars to accommodate them as the mainenergy source, said Mr. Roskilly. The difficulty—and the need to justify that the benefitsare worth it—are two key reasons cars have changed relatively little over the decades.
“When you have anything that’s disruptive, it’s difficult,” Mr. Roskilly said. “It needs alot of investment to make it to the point of manufacturing it in cars.” But increasedpressure to reduce emissions—and the resulting growth in research-and-developmentbudgets—has started to change industry attitudes, experts say.
Aquarius acknowledges the challenge. In the meantime, it’s going after otherapplications, said Mr. Fridman. Starting in 2020, Aquarius plans to roll out its enginesin electricity generators at remote locations, including communication towers inCanada, Europe and the Asia Pacific region.
To cut down on carbon emissions from cars, many solutions are needed, includingbetter combustion engines, battery-powered vehicles and cleaner fuels, said Mr.
Heywood. “Going for the passenger car is very ambitious,” he said. “One is trying tochallenge something that has been very successful, and all the alternatives still havetheir Achilles heel.”  MICHELLE MA
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