Automotive Design and Production

MAR 2014

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23 → Although Al Gore may not have invented the Internet, the former U.S. vice president and 2007 Nobel Prize- winner did have a signal efect on the development of a family of engines developed in Sweden. No, it was not predicated on his visiting Scandinavia to pick up his medal. Rather, his 2006 book, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, had an efect on the thinking of the powertrain engineers at Volvo, says Jan-Erik Larsson, director, Powertrain, Volvo Car Corporation. Larsson explains that the genesis was the issue of CO 2 emissions, which Gore's book calls attention to. "How can we solve the emissions, the CO 2 problem? That was the starting point," Larsson says. In addition to which, there is the European Union emissions regulations instituted in 2009 that Volvo and other European manufacturers have to meet. Step one is for a feet average of all new cars to have CO 2 emissions of 130 g/ km by 2015. Then it is 95 g/km in 2020. And back in 2007, the average was 158.7 g/km. Certainly inconvenient so far as t Jan-Erik Larsson, director of Powertrain at Volvo Car Corp., says that as they looked to the future, it was clear that engine downsizing is essential to meet environmental regulations. So going forward, the largest new engines in Volvo's line-up will likely have no more than four cylinders and about two liters of displacement. 2008. And the shoe dropped for Volvo in 2010, when Ford sold Volvo Car to Geely Automobile. The then-rumored sale had a direct efect on Larsson and his colleagues beyond who was going to be cutting their paychecks: "Ford was our main supplier of engines. We needed a stand- alone scenario." So, with those factors, they set out to create new engines, and they did so on a fast track. The strategy was accomplished in 2007, design concept work in 2008, and the frst engines were tested in 2009. And now with the launch of 2015 XC60, V60 and S60 (and with the anticipation of the forthcoming XC90, with the new Volvo scalable architecture underpinning it), the new engines are under the hoods and will be the bases for all future Volvo engines. While the company still produces an I5, it will be phased out of production. Which leaves Volvo with the in-line four cylinder architecture that it developed, as well as a three-cylinder engine. Volvo, Larsson says, will not be going bigger than four cylinders and ~two liters of displacement. Larsson recalls that the starting point for the development was addressing how they could meet the 2020 low CO 2 levels. "You soon realize that you need to do downsizing, down-speeding. We said to reach that level of CO 2 , four cylinders could do it." That's only part of it. "Our customers demand performance and power from the engines." So that part of the equation had to be fgured, as well. So in order to meet their requirements, they developed two gasoline engine variants and one diesel variant. While it might seem that the two types— ignition combustion and compression combustion—would be widely diferent, Larsson says that the engine architecture is one that facilitates signifcant sharing. He enumerates, "There is huge commonality between the petrol and the diesel engines. We have 25% totally identical parts—the same part number. There is 50% from the same concept, but with small adaptations. Twenty-fve percent are unique." So in the case of the frst-named, there are things like the crankshaft, bedplate, and alternator. For the second, there are the engine block and balancer module. And for the completely unique, there are the cylinder heads. It is also important to note that the "Drive-E" powertrain architecture (the "E" stands for "environmental," not "electrical") will lend itself to a total of four gasoline engines and four diesels. This doesn't include another variation, which would be the hybridization of the powertrain, but that is accounted for in the basic design, as there is a spacer between the engine and the Aisin Warner eight-speed automatic transmission (used throughout the lineup) which, Larsson says, is available for integrating an integrated starter generator, which he describes as being the "frst step to a mild hybrid." Then to go full-hybrid, there is the possibility of putting an electric motor on the rear axle. So while there are three powertrain variants now (with only the gasoline T5 and T6 gasoline versions being made available in the U.S. market), there are plenty more to come. It is worth noting, however, that all Drive-E engines feature start-stop and brake regeneration. Brake pressure measurement is used to determine when to stop and start the engine. To assure seamless operation, there is an electric oil pump and an improved starter motor. then-existing powertrains went. There was another driving issue. Back in 2000, Volvo Group sold Volvo Car to Ford. But around 2007, Larsson recalls, "It started to leak out from Ford that they were going to sell us." At that time, Ford had created the "Premier Automotive Group." It consisted of Lincoln, Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Aston-Martin." Aston-Martin was sold of in 2007. Jaguar Land Rover went in t The Volvo Drive-E T6 engine: a two-liter four that produces 240-hp, 258 lb-ft of torque, and greatly reduced CO 2 emissions. It is one of eight engines—four gasoline, four diesel—that Volvo is creating from a single architecture. 0314ADP FEATURE Volvo.indd 23 2/18/2014 3:30:23 PM

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