Lotus Exige 270E Tri-fuel

The fastest Exige yet can also run carbon neutral
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Lotus has come up with its most potent Exige yet. But it won’t be on sale any time soon. The car is part of an experiment with sustainable fuels that could turn carbon dioxide from enemy to friend.

The Exige 270E Tri-fuel uses a modified Exige S engine to drum up 201kW at its 8000rpm redline and 260Nm of torque at a characteristically frenetic 5000rpm. That gives it a jump of 38 kW (19 per cent) and 45 Nm (14 per cent) over the standard S mill – enough to shunt it from 0-100km/h in 3.9 seconds and on to a top speed of 255km/h. And... it will do it on any mix of petrol, bio-ethanol and methanol.

In fact that’s why it will do it. Developed by Lotus Engineering, the marque’s R&D and consulting arm, as a test-bed for sustainable fuels, the 270E symbolises something of a win-win for lovers of velocity and Mother Nature alike. Its performance advantage over its donor vehicle is rooted in its ability to make the most of alcohol fuels.

The company’s boffins see synthetic methanol as better suited to internal combustion than petrol for its potential to boost thermal efficiency. They also say it’s better for force-feeding – turbo- and supercharging. This makes it particularly appealing at a time when most makers are looking for ways of extracting more power from less engine.

Thanks to higher evaporation thresholds, better charge-cooling effects and higher octane ratings, alcohol fuels – particularly methanol – produce more power in an appropriately tuned engine than fossil fuels. The 270E is quicker from 0-100km/h and has a higher top speed running 100 per cent synthetic methanol than with petrol.

But it’s the wider part of this experiment that’s of most interest – the part involving synthesising methanol using carbon recovered from atmospheric CO2. Carbon dioxide is, after all, the gas that’s on the minds of governments, scientists, marketers, everyone, right down to Alan Jones.

Or, more specifically, how to get rid of the man-made excess of it. That’s what gives this project its considerable ramifications: synthetic methanol’s potential for CO2 neutrality. The company says it can be, and is being, done using electrochemical techniques to combine oxygen, hydrogen and carbon.

It’s possible, it says, to extract carbon from atmospheric CO2 through large scale extraction facilities or biomass. This process would also free up oxygen from the separated CO2 molecule. Hydrogen would come from the electrolysis of water. Synthetic methanol also happily mixes with its biomass-sourced counterpart, easily made from all manner of feedstocks.

Lotus admits it’s not all plain sailing. Hydrogen extraction presents some problems, for example, in its consumption of electrical power. An important element in realising the car’s potential for environmental neutrality is ensuring that power for this is renewably sourced.

But the current obstacles to realising the idea are by no means unsurpassable. Hydrogen electrolysis, for one, is already attracting fair attention – and hence funding – by virtue of the hydrogen fuel lobby.

If CO2 turns out to be a viable contributor in synthesising methanol fuel and a sustainable method of effecting that comes to light, CO2 would become our friend rather than the enemy it’s become.

It would also help resolve one of the critical conflicts of our time: the war between the much beloved internal combustion engine and the environment. Revheads and tree-huggers, rejoice in each other’s embrace.

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