Geneva show: New wave of GM engines in pipeline

SIX new global engine families – three petrol and three diesel – will be introduced by General Motors in the next two years to meet more stringent fuel economy demands and tougher emissions regulations, starting in Europe.

The simplified range of cleaner and more versatile engines is also being engineered with wider torque and power bands for broader applications, including a new generation of GM hybrid powertrains now under development.

Vice-president for business and product planning for GM’s European subsidiary Opel, Frank Weber, told GoAuto at the Geneva motor show the engines would range from small petrol and diesel powertrain families to large petrol and diesel engines.

“All of the engine families will be renewed, and they will be renewed completely, because in the future the individual engines will have to cover a much wider range from simple, relatively affordable MPI (multi-point fuel injection) solutions to twin-turbo with all bells and whistles, which means the horsepower and torque range of engine families is going to increase significantly,” he said.

“On top of that, you have different levels of hybridisation being combined with those different powertrains, and this is going to happen in both gasoline and diesel segments.”

Mr Weber said a European requirement to achieve an average of 95 grams of CO2 per kilometre across each car company range by 2020 would mean that a significant portion of the model portfolio would need to be hybrid, with diesel hybrid the most likely solution to cut CO2 emissions in larger vehicles.

Left: Opel Vice-president for business and product planning Frank Weber next to the GM Volt EV. Bottom: Opel GTC Concept shown at Paris show 2010.

GM has already announced that it will put a new 2.0-litre four-cylinder diesel into production at its Kaiserslautern factory in Germany from 2014, while three engines – a small petrol, medium petrol and medium diesel – are slated for production at GM’s Hungarian plant from late 2012.

GoAuto understands that the Holden-made Global V6 – the Large Gasoline Engine, in GM-speak – will get a makeover to achieve the new higher standards, although no timing has been announced by the Australian company.

GM Holden director external communications Emily Perry told GoAuto a new generation of the V6 would go into production at the Port Melbourne plant at some point, but that she could not comment on it.

Ms Perry said one of the main objectives of the GM engine program was to simplify the GM engine portfolio, which currently includes engines developed by third parties, including former partners such as Isuzu.

“It is too early to comment on what that will mean for us, but different markets will be affected in different ways,” she said.

“So not all markets will take those engines, and they may continue to do their own thing.”

Ms Perry said timing would dictate whether Opel models in the pipeline for Australia from 2012 would get the new engines.

“We will be taking what exists in that portfolio, and the timing will simply mean whether we launch with those engines or, as per normal practice, we renew them on model changes,” she said.

Holden is in the throes of launching its locally made Cruze with a 1.4-litre turbo four-cylinder petrol engine and a heavily revised 2.0-litre diesel – engines that presumably will be replaced at some point by the new-generation powerplants.

Mr Weber said future powertrain offerings from GM would include compression-ignition petrol engines – known as Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition engines – from later this decade.

These engines dispense with a spark plug, instead firing on the heat generated by compression, like diesel.

“It is definitely one of the development areas that we have,” he said. “Again, we are working on emissions and stuff and getting it ready for the second half of the decade.”

Mr Weber said range-extender, full electric and diesel hybrid powertrains would also be part of the mix, but he cautioned that cost would be a factor.

“If you want your corporate average to be at 95 grams, it means you have to hybridise diesel engines if you want to sell larger cars, even those with diesels,” he said.

“But it has to come at affordable cost, so it means we have still some years to develop that.”

Mr Weber said diesel engines were becoming more costly due to the technology needed to achieve ever-higher emissions and standards.

He said diesels would still be around by 2020, but they would come increasingly under pressure from electric vehicles, which would be seen as more sophisticated.

“It will be more and more difficult for diesels in that environment to have a future, but when exactly that will be is hard to say,” he said.

“What is also obvious is that if you have 20 per cent of electrified vehicles in 2020, just to use a number, it is obvious that the gap in perception between electric and diesel is huge – cold start, emissions free, no noise.

“I think that in a world of more electrified cars, it will be more difficult for the diesel.”

Mr Weber was critical of petrol hybrid vehicles, saying most of them to date could achieve fuel economy no better than small diesels.