As government and customer demands for ever-increasing vehicle fuel efficiency accelerate through the next several years, future Chevrolets will benefit from an all-new family of small-displacement Ecotec gasoline engines being developed by General Motors for markets around the world.
This new global family will comprise a range of 1.0L to 1.5L three- and four-cylinder gas engines engineered and manufactured in multiple regions of the world. They will feature lightweight design and advanced technologies — direct injection, turbocharging, alternative fuel capability – for an optimum balance of fuel efficiency and performance, and will be designed to significantly reduce the noise, vibration and harshness typical of most smaller engines.
“We are working aggressively on vehicle electrification and other technologies,” says vehicle line executive, GM global small cars and electric vehicles Jim Federico, “but the most immediate progress will come from continually improving the internal combustion engine.”
To reduce engineering and manufacturing complexity and provide sufficient flexibility for global vehicle programs, they will be designed and built using a modular approach with interchangeable global components. Production should begin mid-decade and the engines will be introduced across multiple vehicle architectures in GM global vehicle programs in various regions — potentially more than two million engines a year by the end of this decade.
GM adds that this new engine family will be a result of an engineering partnership among General Motors and the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC), Shanghai General Motors (SGM) and the Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center (PATAC).
