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NEWS
Three-cylinder for next-gen Holden Volt?
1.0-litre triple set for debut in Opel's Adam minicar is the range-extender for plug-in Monza conceptOpel’s Monza concept (pictured) caught many an eye when the wraps came off it at Frankfurt, but there’s a distinct possibility its most important contribution to the company’s future lies beneath its attractive shooting-brake silhouette.
The concept car is powered by what Opel describes as a development of the PHEV drivetrain powering today’s Volt – electric drive with a 1.0-litre three-cylinder range-extender engine. Setting aside the fact that the engine in the Monza uses natural gas, the drivetrain could well point to what will power GM’s next-generation Volt, due out in MY16.
For GM, the current Volt has fulfilled its primary function, which was to demonstrate what kind of rabbits the beleaguered Detroit giant could pull out of its sleeve as times got tough. But it hasn’t fulfilled global sales expectations, even after generous price drops in its home market.
Low-level rumours in the US media have even gone so far as to suggest the company might kill it off at the end of this first generation’s life cycle, maintaining the plug-in hybrid platform in the more glamorous – and likely more profitable – Cadillac ELR coupe.
Part of the Volt’s problem has lain with disappointing fuel consumption, care of the 1.4-litre petrol range-extender driving its generator. This was a compromise the company had to impose on the car from the outset. As it pulled the wraps off the concept in 2007, GM was on the brink of bankruptcy, forcing it to make do with an existing engine rather than develop a new, smaller engine as the Volt’s progenitors had originally intended.
Last month, however, the company announced what appears likely to be a belated arrival for that engine. An all-new 1.0-litre three-cylinder gasoline turbocharged direct injection (GTDI) engine is set to debut in an update to Opel’s Adam, the city mini GM’s German arm launched early this year.
The first of GM’s upcoming line-up of small petrol engines and matching transmissions is a joint venture development shared with China’s Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp. It’s designed to keep the General abreast of Ford’s Ecoboost and Volkswagen’s Up! triples in the highly competitive European market.
The high-tech, all-aluminium affair is said by GM to be quieter and smoother than the atmo 1.6-litre fours it’s set to supersede early on. And even though it’s torquier at 166Nm, it’s 20 per cent more fuel efficient.
But if reports from analyst site Edmunds and others are anything to go by, there’s a growing likelihood it will end up in modified form in the next-generation (MY16) Volt.
Range extender engines bear a much lower load than drive engines – they only have to turn a constant-speed generator, not push an entire vehicle through multiple transmission ratios. The 1.4 used in today’s Volt is a naturally aspirated, low-rev version of the turbocharged mill that powers the Cruze, built on the same platform as the Volt.
US site Green Car Reports has speculated that the triple might follow the same modification path. In the Adam, it’s potent for its size, good for 85kW and serving up those 166 Newtons from just 1800rpm. There’s likely to be easily enough power there for generator duties, even without the blower.
GM, as always on the matter of future technologies, remains tight-lipped.
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Written byJeremy Bass
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