Guido Dumarey is an outspoken Belgian engineer who in 1986 created Punch Group, a family-owned assortment of companies and investments in Europe with annual income of greater than 500 million euros.
A lot of that income comes from Punch Group’s automotive arm, which provides powertrain components and engineering companies.
Dumarey, who’s CEO at Punch Group, makes a speciality of shopping for what he calls “widows,” that are struggling companies that the house owners are keen to promote at deep reductions to avoid wasting jobs. The widows are restructured and plenty of of them are bought, usually as a part of an preliminary public providing.
Two key components of Punch Group’s present portfolio are discarded Normal Motors items in Europe: a transmission plant in Strasbourg, France, and a propulsion engineering middle in Turin.
The Strasbourg plant, purchased in 2012 and renamed Punch Powerglide, acquired 250 million euros in funding to increase its merchandise and manufacturing.
Immediately the manufacturing facility provides six- and eight-speed automated transmissions to BMW, ZF Friedrichshafen in addition to Chinese language, Russian and Indian automakers.
Punch Group says that restructuring saved 1,000 direct and three,000 oblique jobs in Strasbourg.
After six years of making an attempt, Punch in 2020 satisfied GM to promote its Turin engineering advanced, which had served as U.S. automaker’s international middle of competence for diesels since 2005.
Buying the enterprise, which was created by GM in 2005 after it separated from Fiat Auto, gave Punch Group entry to greater than 700 engineers and technicians who work on the Turin Polytechnic Citadel.
Dumarey plans to make use of all that information and expertise to remodel diesels into CO2-free, hydrogen-fuel powerplants. He defined how in an interview with Automotive Information Europe Affiliate Writer and Editor Luca Ciferri.
Punch plans to start producing hydrogen-fueled powerplant from diesel engines by 2024. What’s the rationale?
It’s comparatively easy: Europe and China are mandating zero emissions for any kind of transportation. Battery-powered autos are one choice, however not the one choice, notably for heavy vans and lightweight business autos. Essentially the most related determine for these autos is the accessible payload. However to extend vary you want extra batteries, which provides weight and reduces the payload. Subsequently, we expect that changing diesel engines to burn hydrogen offers a really environment friendly solution to provide CO2-free mobility that’s useful each technically and socially.
Why socially?
The automotive business, notably in Europe, has made huge investments in diesel expertise, starting from the engines to the injection and management techniques and extra. All these investments – and a lot of the jobs related to diesels – are susceptible to extinction if we are going to go to battery-power solely.
What are the most important technical challenges in changing a diesel to burn hydrogen?
Hydrogen burns seven instances sooner than diesel, so it is advisable lower the temperature within the combustion chamber. Water injection is a confirmed expertise to do that, however a adverse aspect impact is that this creates corrosion. Lubrication is one other potential subject for an engine that tends to be very dry, so spray lubrication is the one answer. The engine itself solely wants minor modifications to the cylinder head. The injection and management techniques additionally have to be reworked to deal with hydrogen.
Is it harder to transform a gasoline engine right into a hydrogen-burning powertrain?
Probably not. The principle subject is sturdiness. Trendy diesels are designed to final for 350,000 km whereas gasoline engines designed to final for about 250,000 km.
Punch Group plans to begin producing hydrogen-fueled engines by 2024. What can be within the portfolio?
We’re engaged on CO2-free options ranging in energy from 80 kilowatt hours to 400 kWh (109 to 544 hp). On the prime quality, we’re at the moment testing an evolution of the GM Duramax 6.6-liter V-8. (This unit was designed by the Turin middle beneath GM. Punch has the rights to promote the hydrogen-powered variant of the engine worldwide, whereas the diesel model will be bought all over the place besides the U.S.) Then we’re engaged on a 500 cc combustion chamber that may accommodate a number of displacements, from a 3.0-liter V-6 to a 2.0-liter I-4. We even have the flexibility to make a 1.5-liter three-cylinder, however it isn’t on our near-term plans.
Taking a look at Punch Group’s historical past, are you already concentrating on any potential diesel engine factories so as to add?
I can not say something particular, however you may simply think about there’ll quickly be loads of “widow” diesel engine vegetation round Europe.
Why do you count on a high down unfold of hydrogen-powered engines?
Primarily due to the limitation of the recharging infrastructure. By 2023-24, Europe ought to begin to have in place a major variety of hydrogen stations on main highways. (The EU Inexperienced Deal proposes there ought to be hydrogen refueling stations each 150 km on Trans-European Transport Community corridors by 2030.) That can be sufficient for heavy vans. Gentle business autos as much as the scale of a Ford Transit will observe.
And what about passenger vehicles?
Right here the problem is extra on the bundle than on the expertise. A automobile wants a tank able to storing about 4 kg of hydrogen. Whereas the burden of the tank is a fraction of a battery pack – about 50 kg versus a number of hundred kilograms for the batteries – the tank requires an area of roughly 100 liters. It is a important packaging problem if you wish to home the tank within the trunk of a sedan. It’s much more problematic with hatchbacks. For passenger vehicles, we expect the extra promising answer is an electrified flywheel, which we name a Flybrid.
What’s a Flybrid?
It’s a mechanical flywheel that runs at speeds as much as 42,000 rpm and provides kinetic vitality recuperated whereas braking again to the wheels. The kinetic vitality is used to cut back the engine load at begin and when accelerating. We’ve got a second software the place a generator is related to the flywheel to cost a small battery. Right here the saved vitality is given again to the automobile utilizing a motor inserted within the transmission, just like what occurs with full hybrids. We’ve got been testing this answer in some taxis in London, the place we’ve seen gas consumption financial savings of about 34 %. We’ve got additionally examined the Flybrid on a Jaguar XF diesel, delivering a 22 % discount in gas consumption.
You’ve had a really profitable profession in automotive, any regrets about offers that didn’t get achieved?
My failed try to purchase GM’s Holden plant in Adelaide, Australia. That plant produced autos on an excellent rear-wheel-drive platform, Omega. I moved into the powertrain sector as a result of one of the best platform for a number of purposes is rear-wheel drive and I misplaced it. However it’s what it’s. (GM and Punch ended negotiations for the plant in February 2016, with operations halting in October 2017. A complete of seven.6 million vehicles have been constructed on the manufacturing facility over 69 years).