Gadgetory

a lot of cars actually use atkinson cycle engines you just wouldn't know it I guess lean-burn doesn't make for a sexy a badge as turbo or 5.0 and notice most cars with an atkinson are hybrids as the technologies dovetail with a mission of efficiency above sheer power here's how it all works an Ekans an engine basically one takes in a little less fuel and two brings the most out of it but three at a sacrifice of raw horsepower when a given piston in an a constant engine has completed its intake stroke and begins to compress the charge of air and fuel it leaves the intake valve open for a bit creating a sort of leak and thereby reducing the amount of air fuel charged in the cylinder unchanged is the duration of the combustion or power stroke thereby giving the engine all the time it needs to fully burn the smaller charge it ignited the downside is less air and fuel going in means less power coming out when you ignite it all but you spend proportionally less fuel on your overall power since most Atkinson cars are hybrids so what the engine lacks in oh the electric motor more than makes up now why is it called an Atkins in cycle that's because it was invented by a guy named Atkinson the late 1800s a British engineer back then there was no variable valve timing as we've discussed so he literally had to vary the travel length of each piston cycle with a combination of wonky linkages you should be pretty glad we're not dealing with today more car tech demystified right now at CNET on cars comm click on car tech 101