Lotus Exige Tri-Fuel Concept: When Gas Is Not Enough (Or Maybe For When There's Not Enough Gas)

Exige Tri-fuel concept uses gasoline, ethanol, methanol or any combination.

There may be snow on the ground in Switzerland in early March, but there's also a lot of green, at least in Geneva, where a multitude of diesels, diesel hybrids and alternatively fueled cars will be making their debut this week at the annual Geneva Motor Show.

In one of the more interesting – a concept, not a production model – is the tri-fuel Exige (badged the Lotus Exige 270E Tri-Fuel), which, the company says, can run on gasoline, ethanol, methanol or any combination of the three.

Lotus, which recently unveiled a low carbon dioxide emissions engine concept, is deep into green strategies, buthasn't abandoned performance: The 270 horsepower, tri-fuel Exige is capable of 0-60 acceleration in 3.88 seconds, the company said, and has a top speed of 158 mph.

The company says ongoing work on absorbing CO₂ from the atmosphere and turning it back into alcohol-based fuels such as methanol could make it possible to someday have cars that use internal combustion engines but have environmentally neutral tailpipe emissions.

Lotus said Monday that it expects to have technology for production of sustainable synthetic ready "in four to five years" but cautions that it believes the necessary investment in fuel supply infrastructure from governments and major fuel companies "could take 15 to 20 years."

Typical.

Posted by

John O'Dell March 3, 2008, 2:15 PM

Permalink

Categories:

Alternative Fuels, Auto Shows, Emissions, Flex-Fuel