A former tech editor for CAR magazine, Ian knows what's what in the oily – and electric – bits of a car.

BAD HOMBURG, Germany – Ever since Nikolaus Otto (1876) and Rudolf Diesel (1892) invented their respective “cycles” — the four-stroke internal combustion engine (ICE) and diesel compression ignition ...

IRVINE, Calif.—Despite rumors to the contrary, the internal combustion engine is far from dead. Recently we’ve seen several technological advances that will significantly boost the efficiency of ...

A.Here's a pressure-volume diagram for a combustion engine. Although rough, it is an approximation of the so-called air-standard cycle. '' Point (a) is at atmospheric pressure, after which the air is ...

A fundamental difference between gasoline and diesel engines is that a gasoline engine uses spark ignition while a diesel engine uses compression ignition. Before we delve deeper, let's understand how ...

Mazda’s new SkyActiv-X engine will go against every convention you thought you understood about gasoline engines. It’s supercharged, but for efficiency purposes, not to increase power. It has a ...

For more than a decade, automotive engineers and researchers have been struggling to come to grips with a way to build an engine that runs on gasoline while harnessing the efficiency and torque ...

A computer generated power stroke of an internal combustion engine, following ignition - Pathompong Thongsan/Getty Images When comparing engine specs for nearly any combustion engine automobile, we ...