Abstract
Vehicle Makers Enhanced Goals Improve Business Prospects of Advanced Automotive Gasoline Engine
Technologies
Vehicle makers in North America are setting stiff goals for themselves regarding their engines
performance and other key characteristics. These include satisfying emissions regulations, reducing
fuel consumption and manufacturing costs, maximizing reliability, horsepower, and torque, and
minimizing noise, vibration and harshness. Advanced engine technologies help manufacturers meet
these targets. For instance, certain valvetrain technologies can reduce emissions and fuel
consumption even while boosting performance. Meanwhile, turbochargers and superchargers increase or
maintain power output while decreasing fuel use through downsized engines. Electronic engine
management technologies control engine parameters for best emissions control, fuel consumption, and
performance, while air/fuel systems optimize an engines breathing. Gasoline-electric hybrid
technologies can save fuel in urban driving cycles, making gasoline engine-powered vehicles more
competitive than diesel-powered vehicles.
This Frost & Sullivan insight examines the status of North American advanced automotive
engine technologies with a focus on their benefits, drawbacks, and future trends. The analysis has
been segmented into valvetrain technologies, boosting technologies, electronic engine management
technologies, air/fuel systems, gasoline-electric hybrid technologies, and other advanced engine
technologies.
Vehicle Manufacturers Face a Quandary as Advanced Technologies Increase Cost, Complexity, and
Weight of Engines
Vehicle makers face tradeoffs in their technology choices as they have several conflicting
factors to consider. For example, they have to minimize costs as well as maximize reliability, while
somehow satisfying the customers performance expectations, but technologies that reduce emissions
and fuel consumption increase the complexity of engines and often harm performance. Engine builders
evaluate technologies in terms of their benefit/cost tradeoffs, as they work to find the most
effective and market-attractive technologies to deploy.
Although many customers demand less complexity and easy access to vehicle parts for maintenance,
trends suggest that vehicle powertrains are only likely to get more complicated in the long term.
"More hardware needs to be incorporated into engines for emissions, performance, and other
reasons," says the analyst of this research. "Aerodynamic and styling requirements can
also dictate packaging volume and hood lines and these needs are likely to cram the engine
compartment more."
Leading Vehicle Manufacturers Drive Uptake of Advanced Technologies by Incorporating them in
Engines
The Japanese Big 3 automakers -- Honda, Toyota, and Nissan to a lesser extent -- have been
especially aggressive in incorporating advanced technologies in production engines for the North
American market. BMW and Mercedes-Benz, two upscale European automakers, have also been at the
forefront of implementing certain gasoline engine technologies. "The North American domestic
Big 3 -- Chrysler Group, Ford Motor Co., and General Motors Corp. -- have largely lagged in
adopting most advanced engine technologies," observes the analyst. "Other, lower-volume
vehicle makers generally position themselves as followers rather than leaders."
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