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It is not a matter of why cant a car do it, it is more a matter of why does big business wish to hide and deride the engines and vehicles that can.
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Not so much big business, it's a matter of emissions. Sure, we want our oil to last, but we also need to breathe.
It's fairly easy to significantly increase fuel economy if you throw out emissions
What sucks is that we're already fairly close to the max thermal efficiency for otto engines given operating temps (can't really increase without screwing emissions) and compression ratios - there's not much room for growth. Of course, tech changes all the time and both current and theoretical max efficiency goes up - but it's a slow process. Personally, I believe that money is better spent in energy storage devices (batteries, caps, etc.) - where an otto cycle in a car might be around ~25% max theoretical efficiency --- steam turbines can have efficiencies much higher than 50% (which is why a majority of the world's power is driven by steam). Just my .02 cents
For everyone's reading pleasure
Fuel saving - a professional engineer's view