Page images
PDF
EPUB

When the exhaust ports open and the hot unburned gas comes out, they hit it with a blast of air which oxidizes it, then it goes on out the tailpipe. The unburned gasoline is consumed right at the exhaust port when it is red hot, after the explosion.

The key to this, of course, is the air pump. You were in California and the laboratory and saw the various devices. You will recall that one of these was an afterburner where they added air and burned up in the muffler the unused gasoline.

The automobile industry has used the engine itself as an afterburner. This is why we do not have this going on used cars. They took the engine itself as an afterburner and burn it right there in the exhaust manifold. The air pump is the key. Then you go into the engine to burn the gasoline that is not burned in the engine.

Senator MUSKIE. So that does not represent an improvement in engine performance in terms of its fundamental performance. It is still another way of disposing of the waste?

Mr. JENSEN. That is right. With this they do change slightly the timing and the carburetion so there is some improvement.

You should get, for example, a little bit better mileage, and so forth. But that is a small part of it. Basically it is using the engine as an afterburner.

Senator MUSKIE. Have you had some prototype cars with the system tested?

Mr. JENSEN. Yes. We changed our test procedure slightly on this. When you gentlemen were in California, you will recall that we had devices on whole fleets of cars running around Los Angeles. Our problem was that we did not have 1966-model cars to test, so the big volume of test vehicles are in Detroit. There are probably 200 or 300 of these running around Detroit. You will probably see them tomorrow, in proving grounds, traffic, and so forth.

We got a limited number of prototypes in California. Each company sent us four, two with fluid drive, and two with stick shift. We are driving this around and trying them out, but the basic tests are in Detroit.

This is a cutaway of the exhaust port with the air supply hitting it. This is the whole thing with the engine, with air pump coming into each one of the exhaust ports.

See, this is the pump, right up by the fan belt. This is an eight cylinder engine. Each exhaust port gets hit with a blast of air.

This will be, as I say, on every car next year in California, approximately every car, except racing models. There are a few exceptions. Senator MUSKIE. This is a system the industry itself settled on to meet the requirements of California?

Mr. JENSEN. This retards carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons but both are below California standards.

Senator MUSKIE. How does this device compare in test results with the afterburner approach that California had been testing?

Mr. JENSEN. On this I would have to defer to the industry. They say, based on their tests, and they tested the same devices we tested in California, that this is far more reliable because there is something to service.

You remember the afterburner required a change of spark plugs or if it was a catalyst, it required the change of chemicals.

I do know the maintenance of General Motors and Ford, but this pump that General Motors has developed, and they sell to Ford and American Motors, they claim will go the life of the car.

One possibility that is already being worked on in Detroit is rather than have this plumbing outside the engine, they can cast the block with holes right in the engine block, so if it went nationwide, you would not have any exterior plumbing, I think.

This kind of thing I think is possible with a very minimum of maintenance, whereas the other devices required maintenance. They did an effective job in California, but they did require maintenance. Senator MUSKIE. What percentage of the hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide does this dispose of?

Mr. JENSEN. Based on our present studies, I guess about 70 percent, by the time they get on cars.

The automobile industry always gives itself a leadtime. Our standard is 275 parts per million. They would set a goal of 225 parts per million to be sure they are within the requirements.

So my guess is when we get it on California cars, we would probably have an 80 percent reduction, even though the models show only 70 percent.

Senator MUSKIE. Is that result of 70 percent the optimum we can expect, using this particular approach?

Mr. JENSEN. I would not say so, Mr. Chairman, primarily because devices started in California cars back in 1961 models. Every single year the automobile industry, using basically the same principle, has improved the way they work, the maintenance requirements, greater periods between necessary maintenance, until now we have approximately 100 percent control.

I do not think you will ever get 100 percent control with this system, but I think every single year, if there is some incentive, as contained in the general provisions of S. 306, you will get better than 70 percent control. You will keep moving it up and getting a more efficient system.

Senator MUSKIE. What is the cost per car of this particular system? Is there a figure on that?

Mr. JENSEN. This is one of the best kept secrets in Detroit. I have no idea what they are going to charge.

Chrysler is the only one we have approved. They do not use the air pump. They modify the induction part of the engine.

Chrysler announced a charge of $13 to $25 initial cost extra. Our big hope in California is that the other companies will be competitive with Chrysler. All I can tell you is what Chrysler is. I have no idea of the others.

Senator MUSKIE. Do you think that the approach to the hydrogenoxide problem, the sulfur oxide problem, is going to be similar to this?

Mr. JENSEN. I think it will be similar to the extent that the controls of oxides of nitrogen will come about through engine modification of some kind, rather than the device going on the car, but it will be a different principle, since in this approach you oxidize, you add oxygen and air to burn up the gasoline vapors.

In oxides of nitrogen you want to take away the oxygen, so it would be an opposite kind of approach, but it would involve engine modification.

Senator MUSKIE. Is this the system that the automobile manufacturers have been developing over a period of years?

Mr. JENSEN. About 3 years ago they presented a series of papers at a society of automotive engineers' meeting in Detroit. Seventeen papers were presented. About two, I guess, were on this method. Ford and General Motors presented it, so they have had it for about 3 years. The other papers were on modification of the carburetor and timing. Others were on catalyst devices, and afterburners.

What they apparently did was try everything, and finally hit on this as the best. But it is not new. It certainly goes back quite a few years, and the papers 3 years ago described basically the system we have right here.

Senator MUSKIE. Of course I speak here as a layman. I am not an automobile manufacturer, I am not a mechanic, I am not an engineer, but can you give me a reason why this system cannot be made a part of every new automobile that is manufactured for the 1966 model year?

It seems to me that it has the advantage of simplicity, minimum maintenance; it seems to make sense from an engineering standpoint. Again I am speaking as a layman.

What better device could you have to begin with than this?

Mr. JENSEN. I think you meant 1967 model year, rather than 1966 model year, because those assembly years are already lined up.

The main reason I think that would cause pause on this would be the maintenance aspect. Again, that is the one thing we do not know about, and they do not know about in Detroit.

They really do not know what is going to happen when this gets out with individual drivers. The only tests they have have been on the proving ground.

In California, this does not worry us. We figure that the problem is acute enough that we have to go ahead and clean up the air with the best method we have.

But it is one of those things you would have to watch here on a nationwide basis to see what happens, because we do not know. Senator MUSKIE. In your testimony you pointed out that there are about 10 million California cars on the road.

Mr. JENSEN. Yes, sir.

Senator MUSKIE. How many cars from outside your State visit your State in a year?

Mr. JENSEN. They checked the streets of Los Angeles and it ran about 1 percent at any given time. That would be the percentage from outside of State that would be there at any given time.

During a year I guess it would run more than that, but the pertinent figure was what would happen at any one given time.

Senator MUSKIE. That seems a rather small figure. Do you suppose the smog has driven them away?

Mr. JENSEN. It is very possible. You also have a lack of an effective transit system in Los Angeles. As you know, Mr. Chairman, almost everybody drives a car. Nobody gets on a bus.

Senator MUSKIE. I know. I subjected myself to it just once.
Mr. JENSEN. Yes, sir.

Senator MUSKIE. I think this has been very helpful.

Senator Bayh?

Senator BAYH. Mr. Chairman, let me ask Mr. Jensen one thought. What conditions have the automobiles that you have tested, and the manufacturers have tested, been subjected to? Have these been jacked up and put in sort of a vacuum atmosphere, or have they been subjected to the rigors of normal use?

Mr. JENSEN. Let's talk about the automobile industry testing, first. Over the last 50 years, they have developed proving grounds which they consider are typical of normal use. Those proving grounds run through salt water spray baths, and cobblestone streets, and all kinds of things, to make them similar to what is going to happen in normal

use.

In this particular instance, General Motors, for example, has run several of these cars a hundred thousand miles to see if they would last the life of the car, to determine how much maintenance is needed. They have done this on a route simulating city streets, where you come to a stop sign and stop, so this is not one of these high-speed tests where you go 75 miles an hour 24 hours a day.

The automobile industry has made a definite effort to simulate the way you and I would drive our cars in normal use. In spite of that, they sometimes miss. This could possibly be the case here.

This is a far more meaningful test, on the proving grounds, than we are doing in California. There we have four cars from each company, in California. We give them to salesmen and they pile up a lot of mileage around Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and other parts of California.

We are trying to give the public some protection before they hit the market.

Senator BAYH. At least it is seeing your doubt in California, the leading State in the Union in the research and development of the need. The odds are that the benefits are going to be greater than the detrimental effects.

Mr. JENSEN. Yes, sir.

Senator BAYH. Óne other thought. Secretary Quigley suggested that we did not have technical know-how sufficient-at least he did not feel that we have reached the state of the art-where we could reliably apply the technical capability we had in testing and in inspection, and that we had not yet arrived at administrative procedure that was simple enough that this could be applied for the public in general. Apparently you do not share his concern in California.

Mr. JENSEN. There are two answers to that question. I will answer the second part first.

The administrative and legislative procedures, as I indicated right at the outset, are extremely complicated, and have to keep pace with engineering know-how.

Our legislature studied this question specifically for 2 years. A law now going through the legislative halls, it has already passed the State senate and is now before the assembly, does answer the problem of annual inspection and the machinery to do it.

Senator BAYH. I was talking about technical capability.

Mr. JENSEN. One point he made is good, and there is a definite lack. At the present time there is no instrument which can go into a garage

to determine easily and cheaply whether these cars are in compliance with the standard.

You saw our equipment in California when you were there. You can see how complicated that is.

This is duplicated in approximately 50 test stations in Detroit, and the U.S. Public Health Service has a couple, but it requires engineers, and a lot of equipment.

This has to be resolved. The automobile industry has given us certain specifications. We have circularized all the instrument manufacturers in the United States. We have said to them, "Here is a tremendous market in California. Come up with a suggestion."

Beakman, Minneapolis Honeywell, and two or three others have indicated their interest.

The technical know-how is not here yet, but we have to have it, and it will come along. With 10 million cars in California which eventually are going to have to be checked, that is a big market, and I think they will come up with an answer.

They do not have one yet, and Secretary Quigley was exactly right on that phase of it.

Senator MUSKIE. I understand that Chrysler sold this system to Ford and General Motors. Is that correct?

Mr. JENSEN. No, sir.

They had an agreement in Detroit for a mutual exchange agreement of information, so everything that one company came up with was made available to the other companies. This went back I think for about the last 10 years. Anything developed in Detroit on smog was made available to the other companies.

So Chrysler made all theirs available to the other companies, as did General Motors and Ford. There was a free exchange of information. At the present time, however, there are slight variations in every company's system, based on engine development. Ford, I am sure, will say their system is better than General Motors, and vice versa. But they at least exchange information without cost.

Senator MUSKIE. Is the Chrysler system basically this one?

Mr. JENSEN. Instead of having the air injection, it establishes a different distribution system for a different carburetor and timing. They try to eliminate the unburned gasoline by making a better combustion at the start. With their engines apparently they can do it. The have a problem on maintenance, which I mentioned, this mandatory three and a half hour tuneup once a year, which they specify. So again this will be competitive. It will be maybe more reasonable at first.

Senator MUSKIE. It strikes me, as a layman, that the Chrysler system could be improved upon by adding this to what they have already done. This may be an oversimplification: but, since the after combustion system is working, and the Chrysler system is applied. before combustion, why could you not combine the two to get even better? Is that an oversimplification?

Mr. JENSEN. No, sir, it is not. Chrysler is working on it. They will not have it for the 1966 models, but they are testing it now, and it is apparently down the road.

Senator MUSKIE. What other sources of pollution in the engine exist that ought to be dealt with, in your judgment, and what is being done about them?

46-378-65- 8

« PreviousContinue »