PARIS — Renault’s choice to have solely a single gasoline engine household for Europe by 2025 displays the growing prices of emissions laws and the necessity to shift sources towards electrification, CEO Luca de Meo says.
The automaker now has eight core engine households, together with 4 gasoline engines, three diesel engines and an electrical motor.
Below de Meo’s Renaulution strategic plan, that lineup will likely be pared to a single gasoline household, with a brand new 1.2 liter 3-cylinder engine; a single diesel for light-commercial autos; and two electrical motors, with a hybrid hydrogen/battery electrical drivetrain for some LCVs.
“We’re going for a really excessive rationalization on the combustion engine facet, a bit of like Volvo did within the premium phase just a few years in the past,” de Meo mentioned in an interview with Automotive Information Europe. Volvo Automobiles introduced in 2017 that it might not be growing any new inner combustion engines and that each one new fashions beginning in 2019 would have electrified drivetrains (delicate hybrid, plug-in hybrid or full electrical).
The announcement by Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelson set off a wave of comparable pledges from automakers which have signaled the top of the interior combustion engine.
“There’s an arms race in the intervening time as to who could make the largest electrification assertion,” LMC Automotive powertrain analyst Al Bedwell instructed Automotive Information Europe. “The massive rationalization of gasoline and diesel engines is required to assist subsidize the electrification push, and with hybridization may be massively versatile with regard to efficiency.”
De Meo mentioned Renault can cowl an output vary of 60 hp as much as practically 300 hp with the 1.2 liter gasoline engine by swapping out elements in Renault’s E-Tech hybrid system. All variations of the engine will likely be hybridized, whether or not 48-volt delicate hybrid for lower-power purposes, full hybrid or plug-in hybrid.
The French automotive journal L’Argus has reported that the 1.2 liter engine will likely be joined by a 1.5 liter 4-cylinder variant of the identical block, however Renault wouldn’t affirm the report. Renault’s current gasoline engines are based mostly on three separate blocks.
The 1.2 liter engine will seem first in 2022 on the substitute for the Renault Kadjar compact SUV. “We’re doing what we name E-Tech Plus” on the mannequin, de Meo mentioned. “That includes the identical block however extra electrical energy and an even bigger battery, so we will have as much as 290 hp with a 1.2 liter engine and nonetheless have 30 grams of CO2 on a plug-in hybrid 4X4,” he mentioned.
The E-Tech hybrid system makes use of two electrical motors, a main drive unit and a starter/alternator. It’s accessible on three Renault fashions, the Clio small hatchback as a full hybrid; the Captur small SUV as both full hybrid or plug-in hybrid; and the Megane compact hatchback and station wagon as a plug-in hybrid. Present E-Tech fashions are based mostly on a Renault-Nissan Alliance 1.6 liter 4-cylinder naturally aspirated engine.
Renault plans to launch seven full-electric autos by 2025, and has simply signed an settlement for a joint venture with Plug Power to develop hydrogen gas cell know-how, beginning with a hybrid battery/gas cell powertrain for business vans. Simplifying Renault’s inner combustion lineup will assist finance these applied sciences, neither of which may but match the revenue margins for gasoline or diesel engines, de Meo mentioned.
“We’re placing all the cash on electrical autos for passenger vehicles,” he mentioned, “and we’re placing cash on hydrogen for business autos.”
Outdoors of Europe in areas the place emissions laws are much less strict, Renault mentioned it might proceed to make use of less-costly current gasoline engines.
“I will not put a 1.2 liter plug-in hybrid powertrain in a Lada Niva,” de Meo mentioned, referring to the rugged, low-cost SUV for the Eurasian market, “so we’ll maintain utilizing some current engines the place we need not meet Euro 7 emissions requirements, for instance.”