Navigant: gasoline and diesel stop-start vehicles to represent 58% of all new vehicles sold in 2025

23 December 2014

In a new report analyzing the emerging global market for technologies that improve fuel economy, Navigant Research forecasts that sales of gasoline and diesel stop-start vehicles (SSVs) will reach 63 million annually by 2025, representing 58% of all vehicles sold in that year.

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SSVs eliminate idling when the vehicle is stopped and restart the engine when the driver moves from brake to accelerator. Over time, Navigant suggests, the SSV is likely to add functionality to become more of a mild hybrid, with the ability to capture and reuse kinetic energy without the expense of a large battery.

Although Navigant expects the use of alternative fuels and electric power to continue growing, gasoline will remain the leading fuel in the coming years, albeit in less conventional vehicles that employ a range of fuel-efficiency technologies, such as downsized engines and turbocharging. Diesel-fueled vehicles are expected to maintain a small growth in market volume and increasingly feature stop-start capability.

There is no single technology that will dominate fuel efficiency improvements over the forecast period through 2025. The focus, instead, will be on incremental improvements in engines and transmissions, along with weight reduction in as many places as possible.

Navigant expects global new vehicle production to increase slowly but steadily over the forecast period through 2025, with much of the increase coming from the Asia Pacific region.

Fiat Chrysler investing additional $266M in Kokomo to increase capacity for 8-speed transmissions

23 December 2014

Eight-speed transmission housings move down the assembly line at Kokomo Transmission Plant. Click to enlarge.

With sales of vehicles equipped with the popular eight-speed transmission growing, FCA US LLC (the new name for Chrysler Group LLC) will invest an additional $266 million in its Kokomo Transmission Plant (Ind.) to increase capacity of the fuel-efficient TorqueFlite transmission. This is the sixth investment made at Kokomo Transmission (KTP) since June 2009, bringing total investment in FCA US Kokomo operations to nearly $1.8 billion.

KTP has been producing the eight-speed transmission, introduced and licensed through ZF (earlier post), since September 2012. In 2013, KTP produced nearly 300,000 eight-speeds. That number has more than doubled to nearly 700,000 in the first 11 months of 2014. Currently, the eight-speed transmission is available on the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Chrysler 300, Dodge Challenger, Dodge Charger, Dodge Durango and Ram 1500. The Company sold more than 800,000 of these models in the US through November 2014.

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Internally, the 8-speed transmission features four gear sets and five shift elements (multi-disc clutches and brakes) inside the transmission. With fewer open shift elements, drag losses due to multiple parts rotating relative to one another, are reduced.

Additionally, lower viscosity transmission fluid is used resulting in improved transmission efficiency and fuel economy improvements especially during cold environments or vehicle start-up. The transmission also is “fill for life” not requiring oil changes during normal driving conditions.

The KTP-produced advanced-technology TorqueFlite eight-speed automatics—first of their kind made available to mainstream-brand customers—are projected to power more than one million vehicles worldwide.

Over their lifetimes, these vehicles are projected to save their owners more than 700 million gallons of fuel, compared with their predecessors that featured five- or six-speed automatics. That quantity of gasoline is worth approximately $2.5 billion at the pump, based on current fuel-price forecasts.

In comparison to the fleet of conventional transmissions they replaced, TorqueFlites promise to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than six million metric tonnes over the same timeframe.

FCA US notified city officials of the new investment at the 8 December 2014 Kokomo Common Council meeting, asking the Council to amend an existing tax abatement to support this new investment. The investment will be used to purchase new equipment and tooling, adding more assembly capacity within KTP’s existing floor space. With the Council’s approval, work in the plant will begin immediately and be completed in the third quarter 2016. With this investment, there will be retention of employment.

Earlier this month, KTP was awarded bronze status for its results in implementing World Class Manufacturing (WCM), a methodology that focuses on reducing waste, increasing productivity, and improving quality and safety in a systematic and organized way. Bronze is awarded after earning a minimum of 50 points in 10 technical and 10 managerial pillars by demonstrating clear WCM know-how and competence through employee-conducted pillar presentations and a review of projects that have been expanded across the shop floor. KTP earned a score of 51.

FCA US has made five additional investments in the Kokomo Transmission Plant since June 2009:

• May 11, 2010 – Announced an investment of $43 million to increase capacity at its Kokomo Casting and Kokomo Transmission plants, and adapt them to support production of the World Engine and improve processes for the 62TE transmission program.

• November 23, 2010 – Announced an investment of nearly $843 million in the Company’s existing transmission manufacturing facilities in Kokomo to accommodate production of a new advanced front-wheel drive automatic transmission.

• December 14, 2010 – Confirmed an investment of $85 million in its Kokomo Transmission Plant for a variety of powertrain improvements.

• December 2010 – A $300 million investment intended for Indiana Transmission Plant I was reallocated to the Kokomo Transmission Plant to accommodate additional production of the eight-speed automatic transmission.

• February 28, 2013 — Announced that it will invest $212 million at Kokomo Transmission, Kokomo Casting and Indiana Transmission I Plants for additional tooling and equipment to produce the eight- and nine-speed transmissions.

Cambridge team successfully tests hybrid light aircraft; 30% fuel savings

23 December 2014

Hybrid in flight. Click to enlarge.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge, in association with Boeing, have successfully tested a light aircraft powered by a parallel hybrid-electric propulsion system, in which an electric motor and gasoline engine work together to drive the propeller. The demonstrator aircraft—based on a single-seat, ultralight Song motor glider—uses up to 30% less fuel than a comparable plane with a gasoline-only engine. The aircraft is also able to recharge its batteries in flight, the first time this has been achieved.

The hybrid system was designed and built by engineers at Cambridge with Boeing funding support. The hybrid aircraft uses a combination of a ~7 kW Honda 4-stroke piston engine and a 10 kW electric motor/generator, coupled through the same drive pulley to spin the propeller. The hybrid system delivers approximately the same power as the standard engine for the Song—a 15 kW Bailey V5 single-cylinder 4-stroke.

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Test flights for the project took place at the Sywell Aerodrome, near Northampton. These tests consisted of a series of hops along the runway, followed by longer evaluation flights at a height of more than 1,500 feet.

Bio-Electric-Hybrid-AircraftUK-based start-up Faradair is seeking Kickstarter funding to help develop a six-seat, twin-engine, triple-box-winged biodiesel-hybrid aircraft it calls BEHA: Bio-Electric-Hybrid-Aircraft. BEHA it to use twin electric fan motors delivering 200 hp each, in combination with a 200 hp bio-diesel generator that incorporates a pusher propeller protected within a duct to reduce noise and to increase safety. The aircraft will take off and land under electric power with the bio-diesel engine used in-flight to recharge the batteries and to provide increased cross country performance. The aircraft will employ solar skin panels and wind turbine technology for energy recovery. These technologies are not the primary power source for the electric motors, but simply additional trickle charge capability.

(In 2010, the Cambridge team tested a hybrid version of an Alatus motorglider powered by a 2.8 kW 4-stroke gasoline engine in parallel with a 12 kW electric motor.)

During take-off and climb, when maximum power is required, the engine and motor work together to power the plane, but once cruising height is reached, the electric motor can be switched into generator mode to recharge the batteries or used in motor assist mode to minimize fuel consumption. The combustion engine then runs at its most efficient point. The same principle is at work in a hybrid car.

Although hybrid cars have been available for more than a decade, what’s been holding back the development of hybrid or fully-electric aircraft until now is battery technology. Until recently, they have been too heavy and didn’t have enough energy capacity. But with the advent of improved lithium-polymer batteries, similar to what you’d find in a laptop computer, hybrid aircraft—albeit at a small scale—are now starting to become viable.

The hybrid power system in the Cambridge demonstrator is based on a Honda engine, in parallel with a custom lightweight motor. A power electronics module designed and built in the Cambridge Engineering Department controls the electrical current to and from the batteries—a set of 16 large lithium-polymer cells located in special compartments built into the wings. The gasoline engine is optimally sized to provide the cruise power at its most efficient operating point, resulting in an improved fuel efficiency overall.

Our mission is to keep our sights on finding innovative solutions and technologies that solve our industry’s toughest challenges and continually improve environmental performance. Hybrid electric is one of several important elements of our research efforts, and we are learning more every day about the feasibility of these technologies and how they could be used in the future.

Robertson’s team, which includes PhD students Christian Friedrich and Andre Thunot and MEng student Tom Corker, is conducting ongoing test flights to characterize and optimize the system for best performance and fuel economy.