GM and SAIC To Develop New Small-Displacement Gasoline Engine Family and Transmission; Combined Up To 20% Reduction in CO2 Emissions
18 August 2010
General Motors Co. and SAIC Motor Corp. Ltd. (SAIC Motor) are expanding their partnership to develop a new small-displacement gasoline engine family and an advanced transmission. When combined, these technologies can provide up to a 20% improvement in CO2 emissions, compared to engines and automatic transmissions in production in China today.
The new small gasoline engine will be offered in displacements from 1.0 liters to 1.5 liters. Its compact, lightweight design combines direct injection and turbocharging, providing customers fuel efficiency and performance.
The engine will be used by GM and SAIC Motor in China and future vehicles worldwide, providing further fuel efficiency advances beyond traditional technologies.
Engineering and development of the new engine will be carried out jointly by GM and SAIC engineers in Detroit and at the Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center (PATAC), the automakers’ engineering and design joint venture in Shanghai.
The new front-wheel-drive transmission will feature dry, dual-clutch technology. It will provide shift comfort equal to a conventional fully automatic transmission, with superior quality, while reducing CO2 emissions. The transmission alone will provide upward of 10% improvement in fuel economy over today’s conventional six-speed automatic transmissions.
The agreement, signed today in Shanghai by GM Vice Chairman of Global Product Operations Tom Stephens and SAIC President Chen Hong, represents a significant milestone that expands GM and SAIC’s relationship into powertrain development.
The co-development of these new engines and transmissions builds on a strong history of innovation and collaboration between GM and SAIC Motor. Together, we will continue to quickly provide our customers leading-edge technologies that improve vehicle fuel efficiency and deliver robust performance.
—Tom Stephens
Now GM has to build or import a small enough car to make the 1.0L engine workable in the US, or use it for the Volt which could boost the CS mileage substantially.
Posted by: Ziv | 18 August 2010 at 04:58 AM
Amazing what could have been done decades ago. It may be too late but could become light weight gensets for PHEVs.
Posted by: HarveyD | 18 August 2010 at 05:59 AM
such ICU used as range extender, would have a very small CO2-production over its lifetime. Even paying a large price to sequester the CO2 or paying more expensive green synthetic fuels would be much cheaper (and greener) than buying a larger battery.
Posted by: Alain | 18 August 2010 at 11:00 AM
One must be prepared to pay more for new technology, specially in the first 5 to 10 years.
We all paid many times more for our first flat LCD or Plasma HDTV than we paid for our CRTs but we still bought millions and that droved the price down from $2500+ to less than $500. The same will happen to EVs, specially the large on-board battery pack.
Small light weight BEVs with be much cheaper by 2020+.
Posted by: HarveyD | 18 August 2010 at 12:38 PM
GM powertrasin suffer from mild obsolescence in Family 0, 1.0-1.4 liter designs. Thsi action will provide them competitors to more modern Ford and Chrysler small ICEs.
But by far the most obsolescent and uncompetitive engine family is the GM Family 1 with sizes ranging from 1.6-2.0 liters. That engine family is the one that really needs to be replaced with a modern clean sheet design.
Posted by: Stan Peterson | 18 August 2010 at 04:36 PM
What about the old Suzuki-Geo 1.0 liter 3 cylinder engine? It was around 25 Km/l. I suppose that now with direct injection and advanced transmission it will be better.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 18 August 2010 at 09:41 PM
The dying ICE technology will need more than minor improvements to survive. ICE will certainly have a large place in our museums.
Posted by: HarveyD | 22 August 2010 at 07:52 AM