Luxury car manufacturer Jaguar and Lotus Engineering are to partner for the development of an advanced internal combustion engine optimised to run on bioalcohol fuels. According to Automotive News Europe the two will work on a single cylinder engine project known as Omnivore, in conjunction with Belfast University.
Alcohol fuels have superior combustion characteristics, and although they burn well in engines designed to run on petrol, a power unit configured to run on a high alcohol fuel content has the potential to be usefully more fuel efficient.
Lotus has been working on alcohol-fuelled engines for some time, and recently unveiled the Lotus Exige 270E Trifuel, which runs on ethanol, methanol or petrol - it was recently tested by Clean Green Cars.