While much focus has been placed upon the identification of completely novel technologies for the future of personal transportation world-wide, the majority of the US and the world at large will be reliant upon petrol for personal transportation well into the future. While EVs, alternative fuels, and hybrid cars have all started to make an impact on the market, with varying amounts of success and consumer accessibility, their relative market share is and is projected to continue to be low. Furthermore, a large segment of the population is not readily able to ever purchase a new car as a consumer and therefore, such technology only becomes economically accessible years later on the secondary market. This research seeks to bridge this gap through a low-cost modification or series of modifications which may be performed on most conventional cars possessing an ECU (those made in the 1980s and later, generally). Such a method would allow for the conservation of those cars already built through the extension of their effective lifetime of use, while also reducing their day-to-day environmental impact which would otherwise go unmitigated. If a car is less expensive to operate for a consumer, it is less likely to be traded in for a newer model, which bears its own environmental impact as the retired vehicle is often junked, and the newly produced automobile brings with it the environmental impact of its manufacture. The initial work proposed here will serve as the basis for further research into this largely scientifically uninvestigated field.

Objective 1: Obtain research test vehicle and perform initial modifications.

Objective 2: Testing and optimization of modified car

Objective 3: Analysis and report of findings with attention to further lines of research