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Right. I dunno if direct injection was a part of the plan as well.
I think some of BMW's prototypes involved electric actuators. Somone out there was using hydraulic actuation as well, forget who, but I knew some of the engineers who were making the servo-hydraulic valves - similar to the control valving on some modern servo-hydraulic diesel injectors. INTENSE machining operations there. I assisted in drafting up patent applications for some of that stuff at the time and was floored. Patent sketches are one thing, but they actually planned to produce this stuff.
Problem is that the electrics use a ton of electricity. While it's a fun experiment for laboratory exploration, packaging those into a car had issues. Imagine, MetroMPG could remove his alternator belt, his PS belt, his A/C, AND his timing chain/belt.
I worked tangent to a university research group that was working to fit piezo-electric stacks onto a briggs motor for lab research - as the piezo stacks react very quickly and with a smaller electrical requirement. If the days of the ICE weren't limited, we may see more of this going on.
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