A dry sump moves the engine’s oil supply out of the pan and into an external reservoir, using multiple scavenging pumps to evacuate the crankcase and a separate pressure stage to feed the bearings. The goal is simple but critical: deliver de‑aerated oil at stable pressure regardless of lateral/longitudinal G, RPM, or vehicle attitude. By controlling oil aeration and slosh, dry sumps prevent pressure collapse in long, high‑G corners and at very high engine speeds, while reducing windage losses. The trade is weight, cost, and packaging for robust lubrication, a lower engine height, and consistent performance in racing, track-day, off‑road, and endurance duty.
Euro 7 for passenger cars and light vans is evolutionary rather than radical: most lab tailpipe limits stay near Euro 6, but durability, particle counting, on-road conformity, and monitoring tighten. The headline shifts are 200,000 km/10‑year emissions durability, counting ultrafine particles down to 10 nm (PN10) and extending PN limits to all spark‑ignition engines, plus on‑board monitoring of real‑world emissions performance. These changes push larger, more robust aftertreatment, better cold‑start thermal management, and sensor-heavy diagnostics. The net effect is cleaner lifetime performance with modest fuel and cost penalties, particularly for small diesel and port‑fuel‑injected gasoline cars.
Solid-state batteries promise step-changes in energy density and safety by replacing flammable liquid electrolytes with inorganic or polymer solids and enabling lithium-metal anodes. The upside is compelling: 20–50% higher cell-level energy, improved abuse tolerance, and potentially faster charging. Yet core physics and manufacturing realities—dendrite control, interfacial stability, layer uniformity, moisture sensitivity, and yield—govern whether the promise translates into mass-market packs. Companies like QuantumScape and Solid Power have advanced multi-layer prototypes, but moving from lab cells to 20–100 Ah automotive formats at high yield and low cost remains the central challenge for the decade.
Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) and Reactivity Controlled Compression Ignition (RCCI) pursue the same goal—diesel-like efficiency with ultra-low NOx and soot—via different control levers. HCCI relies on autoignition of a near-homogeneous, typically lean charge; RCCI layers fuel reactivity in-cylinder using two fuels to steer when and where heat is released. Their feasibility hinges on fuel chemistry (octane/cetane), temperature and dilution windows, and how precisely phasing can be managed. The comparison below highlights control difficulty, usable load/speed range, temperature sensitivity, and hybrid blending strategies that bridge to more conventional spark-ignition (SI), diesel, and partially premixed combustion modes.
