A New Engine for at Least One Automaker

11/15/96

The Associated Press has reported that Chrysler Corporation introduced a new line of computer-designed, aluminum V-6 engines last Thursday, the day after the Wall Street Journal reported that Toyota had developed an engine that uses one third less parts than conventional engines and was more fuel efficient. While Toyota would not comment directly on its future plans and denied that it had made an engine that was one third cheaper to produce, Chrysler said that its new aluminum engines are more fuel-efficient and more powerful than the cast-iron engines it traditionally makes.

Chrysler says its new engines will initially be used in the corporation's redesigned "LH" line of of full-size sedans for 1997--the Dodge Intrepid, Chrysler Concorde, Chrysler LHS, and Eagle Vision Francois Castaing, Chrysler's vice president of engineering, says the new engines are quieter than any the company has ever produced, that they are 10% more fuel efficient, and that they produce up to one-quarter more power than current engines.

Castaing said, "with the use of lighter aluminum plus our ability to optimize the air flow by using computer simulations, we have smaller engines producing more power, using less fuel and burning cleaner than the engines they replace."

Castaing said that the engines will be slightly more expensive to produce, but not enough to raise the price of the cars. Additionally, the corporation expects the engines to save it money in the long run, as they will not have to be retooled to meet new emissions standards. The engines' emissions already meet California's strict Low Emission Vehicle standards for model year 2000.

Bruce Coventry, Chrysler's manager of advanced manufacturing, said that extensive computer modeling, designing, and prototyping of the new engines brought the powerplant out of the design stage in only two years, beating the industry standard of three to five years by a good margin. He said development costs for the new engine were under $625 million, substantially cheaper than the billion dollars it usually costs to develop a new engine.

Paul Dever -- The Auto Channel