Dubai is a place well known for having more money than nearly any other location. A startup company back in 2013 was looking to create something spectacular with a 5,000 HP engine that would have been the most powerful in the world, so what happened? The world’s biggest and best automotive designers and manufacturers are looking towards the future in an attempt to envision the supercar of tomorrow. What they planned to create was incredible and would have left the likes of Bugatti falling behind.
What’s going to fuel the supercars of tomorrow?
The different fuels that the automotive manufacturers have at their disposal are more diverse than ever. The world has, in the past decade, slowly begun to move away from the ever-troublesome gasoline towards a more sustainable, carbon-neutral fuel to power automobiles, with varied success, to be fair. Some countries have gone so far as to ban the importing of traditional internal combustion engines.
One power source that has garnered easily the most attention is electricity. The emergence of the EV propelled the alternative fuel pursuits of companies like Tesla and BYD to the forefront of the public’s attention. The EV became the go-to vehicle for the climate-conscious car buyer. The sales and popularity of the EV transcended those of the gasoline-powered cars of yesteryear.
Hydrogen has proven to be another resource worth exploring. The first vision for a hydrogen-powered future came to us from Hyundai. The brand has been the pioneer of the hydrogen fuel cell stack that aims to replace the lithium battery pack that nearly all EVs use. Some have even found a way to use hydrogen in a traditional internal combustion engine. So, what does the Devel Sixteen car run on? The answer might surprise you.
What has the Dubai-based company created that has astounded the automotive world?
Devel Motors is an automotive startup based in Dubai. They shocked the world at the Dubai motor show in 2017 by unveiling the Devel Sixteen. This is a hypercar aiming to take on the world’s fastest and most powerful cars, like the Bugatti Chiron. It was an ambitious project, to say the least, and the engine was undoubtedly the star of the show.
The engine was built by Steve Morris Engines in Michigan, and posted some insane numbers. Morris claimed that when Devel first approached him to build the engine, they only had two requirements. That the car must have 5,000 horsepower and be faster than anything currently being made. To Morris’s credit, they actually managed to make it and had the numbers to prove the engine’s power.
The engine uses traditional gasoline, as most other fuels simply would not be able to handle that sort of power. The V16 engine would make use of gasoline, and two ECUs would control the powertrain to enable the car to outperform any other competitor. The Italian competition has maintained its dominance until now. There are no cars even remotely close to the Devel Sixteen’s power capabilities.
Will we ever see the Devel Sixteen on the roads of the world?
That answer is slightly more complicated. While the project got a lot of attention in 2017, not much has happened since. Although the company’s social media pages are still relatively active and the website has not been taken down, any reportable developments have been slim to none. While the biggest innovators in the industry explore even more fuel sources, the Sixteen made use of good old gasoline. Whether we see one on the roads remains to be seen; it has been in development for more than a decade now, so let’s hope it becomes a reality.
