Camless engine technology originally developed by Swedish Hypercar manufacturer Koenigsegg is making its way into the larger consumer market, with examples such as a modified Saab wagon and the Qoros Qamfree concept, demonstrating that combustion engines don’t necessarily have to be discarded to make room for hydrogen or electric powered vehicles.
Freevalve technology is still a fairly new concept, and to many, the idea of removing camshafts from a combustion engine would seem impossible, or at least prohibitively difficult. Instead of traditional cam lobes opening and closing the intake and exhaust valves in cars today, Freevalve uses electricity and hydraulics to individually actuate each valve opening and closing and can do so with greater control and less parasitic loss from gear-driven camshafts.
Here’s a video from Driver’s Magazine of how the system works:
The benefits of this setup include increased fuel economy, output, and a smaller, lower engine profile. While electric and hydrogen powered vehicles are undeniably up and coming, the Freevalve system offers a unique opportunity for existing cars with combustion engines still on the road today: retrofitting them with cleaner, more efficient technology to keep them on the road longer instead of scrapping them to a junkyard to rust. After all, keeping an older car on the road is often cheaper, and more environmentally friendly.
Car enthusiasts and tuning companies would do well to realize there’s a market here if they can adapt the Freevalve system to popular cars as well. Who knows? Maybe in the next few years a completely new and unheard of engine will render today’s state-of-the-art obsolete. But for now, Freevalve holds some promise and is definitely worth looking into.
