CAN THIS TRANSMISSION REALLY DOUBLE YOUR CAR'S MILEAGE?

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This action, of course, puts a considerable braking load on the coasting wheels which means that two very desirable things are being accomplished at once: [1] your car is being smoothly brought to a halt, and [2] as it is stopped, the vehicle's dissipating kinetic energy is not being wastefully spewed into the atmosphere as brake drum heat. Instead, it's being accumulated and stored in a form that you'll be able to use to make your car move once again when that red traffic light—which stopped you in the first place—turns green.

Don't forget that your vehicle's prime internal combustion engine is not being slowed down and left to kick over at an inefficient, gas-burning idle all the time you're sitting there waiting for that light to change, either.

Rather, it's allowed to keep right on running at its most efficient rpm—for as long as necessary during your deceleration and the time you're halted—until the pressure in the IST accumulator has been raised back up to a pre-set maximum level. At that point and only at that point (and, again, without your knowing or even needing to know that it's happening) your car's engine will be shut off automatically. And it will then remain shut off until the pressure in the IST accumulator is again bled down to its preset minimum level.

Chances are, then, when that light finally does turn back to green and you glide off down the road once more, you'll begin to move the same way you did when this trial spin started. That is, you'll accelerate and go some distance before your vehicle's engine is again started.

What this all means is that your carin heavy stop-and-go city traffic-can be operated as much as 80% of the time ... on stored energy and with its engine shut off! And if all the other cars around you were also equipped with Inertial Storage Transmissions ... just think what that would mean in terms of soaring gas mileage and plunging levels of internal combustion engine air pollution!

WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE GO IST?

Why, then, doesn't everyone have an IST in his or her car? Certainly not because the concept hasn't been proven.

Vincent Carman's first Inertial Storage Transmission was installed in a Fiat 850 and the little automobile was then driven over the same 3/4-mile stop-and-go course that it had been driven over while it was still equipped with its regular transmission. Result: The Fiat, when operated as set up at the factory, burned 200 milliliters (a shade over 3/4 cup) of fuel during the test ... but only 98 milliliters (less than half as much) gasoline when run as an IST vehicle.

Vince has also installed an Inertial Storage Transmission in a Ford Granada. When tested in city traffic alongside an identical-but-unmodified Granada ... you guessed it: The stock car gets 20 miles to the gallon, while the IST car rolls up 40 miles per gallon. An IST-equipped diesel Volkswagen Rabbit will soon be on the road too, and it'll be interesting to see just how far Mr. Carman's transmission can stretch that car's already superior mileage. In the meantime, though, Vince has already convinced some of our federal government's heavyweights that he's onto something good.

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