All it needs to do is generate motion, so they made it like those flashlights you charge by shaking them. Reciprocal! What will be revolutionary will be performing this with some kind of rotary engine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_C-X75
Given the current popularity of hybrid hyper-cars from Porsche, McLaren and Ferrari it would be interesting to see if something like the Jaguar is tried again.
If I remember correctly about 3 to 1, compared to 10 in 1 for petrol engines and nearly 20 to 1 for diesel engines.
Thermodynamically this makes it very difficult to achieve high efficiency.
That seemed strange to me given multistage compressors. Maybe 3:1 is true for a micro turbines, but for larger jets wikipedia says the pressure ratio is 30:1 to 40:1 citing the Trent 900 at 39:1 and the GE90 at 42:1.
Which according to the same article says that a 40:1 PR is equivalent to a 15:1 compression ratio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Turbine_Car
This was quite literally a lower power jet aeroplane turbine used to power the car.
I would imagine that this would have been great on fuel economy on the highway, but terrible in cities.
Still pretty cool though!
http://www.amazon.com/Chryslers-Turbine-Car-Detroits-Creatio...
Small turbines generally have terrible fuel economy. The Wikipedia page you quote says "...fuel consumption was excessive"
You mean, like a turbine?
I think he means like a Wankel engine:
There are rotary internal combustion engines, such as the Wankel engine. It has a triangular "rotor-piston" spinning in a circular cylinder and goes through four "strokes" per revolution.
Mazda is a manufacturer that utilizes rotary engines in production cars today, particularly in their high performance models.
(at least, for production consumer vehicles)