Boston Herald
Bay State company developing energy-efficient, hybrid engines
By Jay Fitzgerald

A Massachusetts company has secured key patents in Japan, China and Russia for car-engine technologies that it says could revolutionize how vehicles are powered.

“It’s very significant,” said Sal Scuderi, president of Scuderi Group, a West Springfield company that has invented a “split-cycle engine” that could boost fuel efficiency by more than one third while spewing less pollution into the air.

The company also has a new “air-hybrid” technology, an offshoot of its changes to the traditional internal combustion engine, that it says could rival current electric hybrid cars now on the market.

The family-run company says it deliberately targeted big geographical markets to secure patents - in the expectation that the technologies might be used widely in cars and other engine-powered products in coming years.

The hope is to take the new-fangled engines and sell the technology rights to automakers and other manufacturers, said Scuderi.

The company is currently building a prototype of the engine, with the hope of unveiling it next year.

If it works as it does in computer simulations, Scuderi said he’s hoping major corporations will take notice.

The “split-cycle engine” was the brainchild of the late Carmelo Scuderi, who died a few years ago, shortly after he won patents on his invention.

Sal Scuderi, Carmelo’s son, said the company is particularly excited about the new hybrid technology, which recaptures and stores excess energy created by the split-cycle engine. The company has already raised $14 million in private and government funding to get its technology off the ground.

With gasoline prices now hovering around $3 a gallon, investors have been recently pouring money into new technologies that offer more efficient and cleaner energy-use alternatives.