Self-Sustained Electric Car Engine

A while back I was walking home from a San Diego Padres game when the topic of electric cars emerged. This sparked my kids to ask the question of how you would make an electric powered car. Of course the usual answers like solar and battery power came up, but that was not good enough. What about a car that could produce its own energy and still maintain speeds of a gas powered engine? Having always been a problem solver, I had to keep mulling over the idea until I could solve the problem. I began to think of an idea that my dad had when I was a kid. You could have a gas powered generator that would produce the electricity to power the vehicle. This would lead to a huge mpg rating, but still left the problem of being reliant on fuel, not to mention that this is the current method being used in hybrids. The idea kept rolling through my mind until I finally came up with a plausible solution. This idea is set in several proven scientific methods and ideas. I have yet to construct this due to the lack of funds and a place to construct it, but on paper it is very sound. If anyone does build this, please notify me in the comments. Hopefully, we the people can advance where the oil industry blocks the auto industry from venturing.

This new engine will take your vehicles current (or a new one if you prefer) engine block and only requires a few small alterations. The biggest change to the vehicle is the spark plugs. The current spark plugs serve the purpose of setting off an explosion inside your vehicle. The need for this explosion will no longer be needed, but the use of the distributor to power a type of plug will still exist. The piston head is the other modification to the current engine. This modification is necessary to make everything work with the new plugs. These modifications consist of reverse polarity electromagnets. By lining the piston heads with a magnet, and then replacing the plugs with magnets, you can create the same energy that the explosion would produce, without the use of gasoline. The trick is to have the plug magnet send the same polarity as the magnet in the top of the piston head. This will create the thrust needed to force the piston down the piston shaft, in turn rotating the cam shaft and making the engine work as it would under fuel operation. The only other change that may be needed is to line the piston shaft with an anti-magnetic liner so that the piston does not stick to the side walls or, at the very least, move much slower through the shaft. This can also be accomplished by embedding the magnet inside the piston head as long as the piston is non-magnetic.

The electromagnets that replace the plugs are a little more complex. These will need to hold their magnetism only while the electric surge is present. There can only be a split second of lag or else it will force the piston to stay at the bottom of the shaft and cause the engine to stall. Basically, these electromagnets will need the same power surge that the distributor provides the old plugs. This power surge will activate the magnet and cause it to push the piston to the bottom of the shaft. There are two options at this point. One would be a dual polarity magnet, or you can rely on the current method that your engine uses. The dual polarity magnet, may not be a possible option and this is an unproven theory that I have devised in an effort to improve the capability of the engine. If you can create a magnet that will hold one polarity that will repel the piston when needed and then be able to reverse polarity to attract it on the upswing. If possible, this could greatly increase the RPM capability of the engine decrease the power need for the electromagnet at the top of the cylinder. I am not aware of a dual polarity magnet though so this part is purely speculation.

That is all there really is to do to convert your current engine block from gas powered to self sustained. There are a couple other alterations that can be made to make an even cheaper and less fossil dependent machine. If you use an industrial strength plastic for your pistons and even the entire block, you can greatly decrease the cost of manufacture and production. This and aluminum parts will also allow you to use a vegetable based oil instead of regular motor oil. The precise oils that you can use will take some serious test runs and might take a lot of time to perfect, but this step can greatly reduce the amounts of oil used and the type of oils that will work.

Not only does this idea offer a method to make any car ever manufactured into a completely electric and fuel independent machine, but it can also offer a solution to the energy market. These motors can also be built to produce electricity in the commercial market. I have yet to measure the exact output of these engines, but it would be very comparable to that of four to eight (even twelve) gas powered generators. Enough of these in a power plant and they could easily produce enough energy to power even the largest of major metropolitan areas. I have pondered this use and have come to the conclusion that this would be a very capable by product of this engine's construction. There are several different practical applications for this engine. With just one modification to this design can create a very high output generator that will charge batteries, plug into your home as a power source, or be set up to power entire cities.

The only real modification that is needed to create an energy production engine is to line the piston shafts with copper wiring. As the engine operates normally, the piston magnet will pass through the copper wiring at a very rapid rate. This will produce energy at the same or greater rate than your alternator. Each piston will be producing this amount of electricity. For this reason, you will be able to produce massive amounts of electricity. If you can devise a way to store this energy, say a battery pack in the trunk, you can then pug your home into this energy. The one problem that I did encounter in this design though is the production of too much juice. This can cause the battery to explode if it keeps receiving an overcharge. You will need to have a grounding switch that will shed the excess energy after the cell is charged. Another option is to devise a way to plug the vehicle into your home. This will allow you to run your home off either the stored energy or the energy that is produced by the vehicle. This would also be the method you would use to plug these engines into a power plant.

A little thought and some simple modifications to an existing block, can really make a difference in the world. With the oil industry blocking any further reduction in mpg and advancements in electric vehicles, we the people must create the alternatives. It is up to us to create a more green vehicle. This option allows for current technologies to take a step forward and convert to a completely green car that will work on any vehicle that has been made to date. By using the existing parts in vehicles and on the market, we can greatly reduce the cost of conversion as well. If this can be proven to work, then all of us could easily have the next technology in the combat against fossil fuels.