I read that article, and it says one per cylinder, I still have my doubts that it'll be powerfull enought to ignite the mixture on 6ns with only 12V, it needs waaay more than 200Mw too...

 

Haha, I would normally question your doubts... if somebody else had a weird theory of using lasers to ignite cylinder gasses.
But Ford is doing this. They're not going bankrupt... they are definitely the top domestic car maker right now--hands down.

They know enough about this to justify continued research and development.

 

Do a quick search on 'laser beam spark plugs' or 'laser ignition' and you will find a bunch of groups heavily involved in R&D. And no where did I read any concerns about power requirements.

One of the main issues seems to be retrofitting older cars with the new ignition system. But the link I provided in the my last post seems to be addressing that successfully.

 

Yeah I searched it, It seems very well founded and legit. I was wrong first of all because I thought the designers were trying to use one beam for all cylinders, after seeing the small prototype I'm a little more leanient. But still I think there's ways to go before we see this in a prototype car working without hiccups. Is just really a far fetched idea to have a laser beam igniting anything. I will still continue with my doubts and if this ever comes out, I will stick with spark plugs because they are more stable than having a small doom device mounted on my V8.

 

Spark plugs, especially in our chipped 1.8T's, are crap. We foul them so fast that most guys run coppers and change them every 5-10k. Platinum plugs are wasted on us -- if you're chipped.
Laser beams would solve that problem. Woot. :P

 

Laser beams have more potential than the standard plug because nothing sticks into the cylinder and interferes with the combustion dynamics.

 

Oh no doubt, if they can pull it off it would be leaps and bounds better than a spark plug! Just the ignition of the fuel itself would have much better flame travel giving you a horsepower and fuel economy increase. By itself, if it were possible to mount it on a stock 1.8T, it would probably bump it 8-10 horsepower and bump the fuel economy to over 30 mpg average. If they can pull it off, i hope they can make retrofit kits that won't cost me $2,000.......