Displacement and demand
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Made for America: The Holden-built Pontiac G8 GXP sports sedan.
GM Holden spruiks Active Fuel Management on TV, but is yet to make it available
By JAMES STANFORD
29 April 2008
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HOLDEN is promoting a feature its cars don’t have.
The car-maker is using a new brand-building TV advertisement to announce that it will be introducing its Active Fuel Management, commonly known as displacement-on-demand, which shuts down half an engine’s cylinders when cruising.
This feature, which has already been made available by Chrysler and Honda, is not currently available on any Holden cars and the company has made no announcement as to when it may arrive.
Holden sources suggest the displacement-on-demand technology, which will only be made available for the V8 engine, will arrive at some stage this year.
The company could be planning to introduce the feature within months, given it has promoted the feature in advertisements.
Holden had attempted to have displacement-on-demand ready for the launch of the VE Commodore, but there were issues with refinement which led to the project being postponed.
When General Motors decided to re-badge the SS Commodore as a Pontiac G8 one of the requirements was that the V8 would run displacement-on-demand technology and Pontiac subsequently bankrolled the development work.
GM claims the system delivers a fuel saving of around 10 per cent in the G8.
GM Holden spokesman John Lindsay said the company would introduce the fuel-saving technology for its V8s in Australia soon, but would not be drawn on a date.
“It is something we are looking at introducing as soon as possible,” he said.
He said that there were no current plans to introduce the same technology for its V6 engine.
“At the moment, the V8 is the one we are looking at active fuel management for.”
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