Alternative Fuels on Track for Success

There's always been a certain amount of debate over the importance of motorsports to the auto industry. To some it seems just a waste of time and resources, but for others, it can be a valuable way to put new technologies to the test. Dyson Racing, for one, is firmly in the latter camp.

A successful, long-time competitor in a wide range of North American series, Dyson is currently partnering with Mazda to run in the American Le Mans Series LMP2 class. And during this past weekend, a Dyson Mazda-powered Lola coupe finished seventh overall in the ALMS race at Road Atlanta — driven by an engine using a blend of ethanol and biobutanol. Now, ethanol is a well-known choice for an alternative fuel, although there's a lot of controversy around how efficiently it can — or can't — be produced, as well as the fact that it usually relies on a food crop (corn).

The biobutanol, on the other hand, is another one of those supposed miracle fuels. I don't have the space (or chemistry background) to do ye olde deep dive on biobutanol here, but the short story is that it has a higher energy content than ethanol, can be shipped using existing fuel lines (unlike ethanol) and can be blended in any combination with gasoline (also unlike ethanol).

It also can be made from what are called "cellulosic" sources. Again, I'll leave the technical stuff to the experts, but this means it can be made from organic materials like switchgrass and agricultural waste products such as wood chips and sawdust from lumber mills, or even algae. (True, so can ethanol — GM has run ALMS Corvettes on cellulosic ethanol — but ethanol's other disadvantages remain.)

Biobutanol may seem a bit too good to be true, but it also seems true enough to spend some more money on it. Because lately, I've started to get the feeling that the strategy of leapfrogging directly from petroleum to electricity is not going to be a successful one. I've just seen too many years and too many billions of dollars poured into electric vehicles for too little of a return.

I certainly hope cars like the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf are successful, but first they have to start actually rolling off the assembly line, and that's not happened yet. And there aren't too many electric vehicles hitting the track in ALMS competition.

But there are a few diesels, which is another story. Audi's diesel-powered R10 dominated the competition in nearly every event it entered, winning multiple 24 Hours of Le Mans events, ALMS championships and assorted road races since it first debuted. Its replacement, the R15, launched this year and has kept Audi's winning ways alive and well. In fact, at the same ALMS race in which the biobutanol-powered Mazda debuted, Audi clinched the Michelin Green Challenge X.

(The Challenge is part of ALMS' overall efforts to support "green" racing — itself an interesting concept — and rewards the teams that "demonstrate the best overall performance and fuel efficiency with the least environmental impact.")

Coincidentally, Audi happens to be running a challenge of its own right now, which has the appropriately European-sounding title of the "Efficiency Challenge A to B." In the Efficiency Challenge, much as with the Michelin Challenge, Audi is seeking to show how well its diesel products perform. Only the Efficiency Challenge is set in the real world and involves 20 TDI Audis taking a long-distance romp across European roadways

Unsurprisingly, the German OEM's results are as impressive on the autobahn as they were in ALMS. An Audi A3 TDI saw more than 78 mpg (all numbers have been converted to U.S. figures) on the first leg of the Efficiency Challenge, with a diesel A4 reaching above 60 mpg. A few high-performance TDI Audis were also in the mix, with a 340-hp TT-RS achieving more than 32 mpg and a 500-hp V12 Q7 topping 27 mpg.

Right now, only the A3 and Q7 are available in TDI versions here in the U.S., but Audi has made no bones about its belief that diesel, as a currently available technology, should be a major player in this country's battle to lessen its dependence on foreign oil.

And considering the company's success on the track, I'm not going to bet against Audi on the road.

Select photos via Dyson Racing and Mazda