Many car makers create "concept" cars to explore new ideas in automotive technology and design. Sometimes, the concept car is just a drawing. Sometimes it may be a mockup of a car. Other times, the car is actually built and can be driven. Rarely are concept cars the basis for actual production models but many ideas first presented in concept cars eventually make their way into commercial models.
In 2009, Cadillac brought out the Cadillac World Thorium Fuel Concept car design. This car was designed to last a hundred years and run on a single fueling of thorium. Now Audi has presented the design for the Mesarthim F-Tron Quattro, a concept car with a 3D printed body and a fusion reactor for power. Mesarthim is the name of a binary star system in the Aries constellation.
The body of the car would be what is called "monocoque" which means that the body of the car and the chassis of the car would be integrated. It would be printed out of light weight metal with a 3D printer. The chassis/body would also incorporate polymer support.
The car is intended to operation on a metallic magnetic road. A magneto hydro-dynamic system would be incorporated into the bottom of the chassis/body. Magnetic fluid would circulate in this system and, interacting with the magnetic road, would exert a downward force on the car to improve stability.
Power would be supplied with small nuclear fusion reactor. Heat exchangers would use the heat generated by the fusion power plant to create steam. The water would be cooled and reused. The steam would power a turbine which would generate electricity to charge batteries in the front, back and sides of the car. Electricity from the batteries would be used to power motors incorporated in the wheels. Regenerative braking would generate electricity which would be fed back into the batteries.
One serious problem with the idea of a fusion vehicle engine is that fact that today's fusion reactors designs would produce dangerous radiation. It may be possible to design a fusion reactor that does not produce such radiation but we do not yet have the scientific knowledge, let alone the technology, to create such an engine.
Personally, I would prefer to see a concept car use a fusion system based on the Helion Technologies design. This fusion reactor uses two cone-shaped chambers to generate magnetic fields that compress a cloud of deuterium and helium to generate a fusion reaction. It functions sort of like a magnetic piston system, firing about once a second. The benefit of this technology is that it does not consume any radioactive material and it generate electricity directly from the recoil of the magnetic fields. This would allow the car to dispense with all the complexity of heat exchangers, steam turbines, etc. It also would produce much less harmful radiation than other fusion engine designs.
If it is actually possible to create a fusion reactor small enough to power a car that produces power, perhaps it would be an excellent choice for a flying car to power turbofans. The fusion reactor would provide plenty of power for redundant engines and would allow lifting heavy loads.
While all of the is speculation, it is not impossible that someday, personal vehicles might be power by small low cost fusion reactors that would be cheap to operate, reliable and provide very high power.
Audi Mesarthim Fusion Concept Car:
