[Daox]

I was thinking about new mods the other day. Of course, one of the first ideas that always pops into my mind is waste heat recovery. It is a hugely untapped area since only approx 1/3rd of the energy from burning gas is used to propel the vehicle. Massive amounts of heat energy are just blown out the tail pipe. So, for kicks I calculated it. To keep the Paseo going 55 mph down the road (the majority of my commute) it takes roughly 9.5 hp. That means 19hp is going out the radiator or tail pipe.

19hp is a lot of power. About half of that is exhaust heat and half is absorbed into the coolant. So, we have 9hp available for the taking out of the exhaust. How do we capture it though? We've talked about a bunch of ways of doing it on EM over the years, peltiers/TECs, turbos, quicker coolant heat up, and more. So, the next question becomes, how do you capture it without spending a small fortune? I think I have an idea that might work.

My idea is to capture the heat energy as pressure by heating water with the exhaust heat. With this pressure, we can spin mechanical devices or generators/alternators as is my current idea.

The implementation is relatively simple, you weld a sleeve around the exhaust pipe (depending on the pressures you may need a thicker pipe). Fill it with water, and route a line to something that will do work for you. I was thinking of routing the outlet to a turbine that spins an alternator. All the benefits of an alternator delete, but no plugging in to recharge. Depending on the efficiency, you very well may even have excess power. I haven't even really thought of how else to use this yet.

I know this sounds a lot like the BMW turbosteamer or something like that. But, I think its completely doable and for pretty cheap. I just need a bit of help polishing the idea.