system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If we kept up the research and development on steam engines would they be more efficient than our combustion engines today?

I feel like the steam engine was a growing technology and then the combustion engine stole its thunder. It was a quick fix jump in technology leaving the steam engine tech in the past. A century(?) of research of steam engines lost and focused on the combustion engine. Could you imagine a hightech and highly efficient steam engine car today? (The new car that runs on water is not a steam engine if somebody was going to mention it)

Edit: Our modern "internal" combustion engine vs. a modernized **compact** "external" combustion engine that doesn't really exist.

Edit: Thanks for the answers guys. I think I figured out that what I wanted out of a steam engine such as in a car kind of defies physics and/or logic.

Edit: Still have hope :)
gpt
Modern, efficient steam engines are everywhere. Steam turbines are a huge improvement in terms of mechanical simplicity and efficiency over the piston design that springs to mind when you think of a "steam engine". Every power plant uses them to convert heat into rotary motion for electricity generation. They bump up against the theoretical limits for efficiency and cannot really be improved any further.

Steam turbines are not used for locomotion because they cope poorly with varying load. They were used in ships and trains for a time, but diesel engines proved to be better suited.