Stagnation in the Development of Internal Combustion Engines as a Factor of Transition to More Perfect Power Units

The article analyzes trends in the design of car engines. It assesses the impact of modern engine designs on the economic safety and efficiency of automobiles. The authors provide a combined graph of changes in the design of internal combustion engines over the past 30 years, which shows that their further development is stalling, indicating stagnation. The article also analyzes the impact of improved environmental friendliness on design complexity and reliability. As a result of the analysis, it has been found that the maintenance of the technical condition of an engine is becoming more and more expensive. This inevitably increases the number of defective vehicles in operation with poor environmental performance. The results of comparing normative and actual emissions also confirm this. This article compares the aggregate environmental emissions from vehicles with different engine types at all stages of their life cycle, which shows the prospects for the development of hybrid vehicles. Comparison of fuel consumption of vehicles with both hybrid and gasoline engines of similar power, operated under the same conditions, is given by months during one year. According to the authors, the constant development of vehicle performance should inevitably lead to the natural emergence of radically new designs, which will have higher performance properties and will set the development of vehicle power units in the coming decades.