Yet another ?better mousetrap?

Lotus/Continental converted Opel Astra with the research GDI, 3-Cylinder mild hybrid. Lotus Engineering recently won the ?The Engineer Technology + Innovation Awards 2008? with a project called Hotfire. Hotfire is a gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine concept that increase FE by up to 15% and was named the leading academic collaborative project in the automotive sector. Project HOTFIRE studied the efficiency gains of spraying fuel directly into the cylinders of a gasoline engine rather than introducing a fuel/air mixture. With promising early results, the project progressed into a working concept- engine which has attracted the attention from a number of automobile manufacturers.