Original link
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/21/laser_sparkplugs/

BBC link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13160950


"Lasers would potentially offer hotter ignition, and they have other advantages too. The timing of ignition would be more precise than with sparkplugs - on the very brief timescales over which cylinder mixtures change, the exact point at which a plug will spark is quite unpredictable."

When I said I always wanted a car with lasers, that's not exactly what I had in mind, but that's cool too. Looks like another way to improve fuel efficiency, but I wonder how long it'll be before they start appearing in production model cars?

Probably a while. Here's a quote from a guy on another forum of mine.

"This sounds very interesting in theory indeed, however, as a guy who has been working with lasers for the past 20 years this will never come to fruition in my life time. Lasers are by far the most finicky apparatus on the planet, especially YAG lasers, they never stay aligned. They still have to pump the laser with a high voltage Q-switch, there are optics to keep clean, this is a logistical nightmare. I cannot imagine the cost of service or replacement. The YAG lasers i work with are in the realm of $16-$35K cost, now i am certain that theirs are little small pump cavities, however you still have a rod and a flash lamp and a ton of sensitive support circuitry. You have to keep the laser flash lamp cool, or the life time of the device is down the drain in a matter of days if not hours. All my YAG lasers are water cooled, so these people have go a massive hurdle to overcome.
It would really be something if they could figure out how to install the system in the existing cars, instead of just new cars."

Yeah, installing them on existing cars would be huge. I wonder how long it'll be before 2011 cars are pretty rare? I'm thinking at least 10, but more realistically 15+ years. So even if this laser spark plug were introduced now, if it's only for new cars then it'd only actually help an additional ~7% of the market per year until finally nearly all cars have them.

seems like replacing the traditional combustion engine will happen long before these are roadworthy.