Automotive Engineering - April 2022 - 4

EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL
Bill Visnic
Editorial Director
Bill.Visnic@sae.org
Engine tech a decade later
A securities analyst from New York called
recently, to ask about the future of powertrain.
Specifically, she wanted my prediction
for a timeframe for the demise of
both gasoline and diesel IC engines.
Such inquiries by the investment
community to auto-industry media are
fairly common. Indeed, the specific
question of " When will the ICE die? "
may be the most asked, most discussed
topic of the past decade. And
with it come related questions: " When
do you see EV sales penetration exceeding
XX percent? When do you expect
battery cost per kilowatt-hour to
drop below that of gasoline
engines? Which OEMs
will prevail by 20XX? "
A journalist's job is to
ask experts and report
their views, rather than
blabber-on tediously ourselves
(which many of us
tend to do, anyway). In this
issue, my colleague Bill Visnic lets his
reporting and industry knowledge do
the talking in his " Keeping Combustion
in the Conversation " feature on page
18. In Bill's piece, powertrain-technology
experts share their outlook for the
ICE's evolution. It's fair to say that gasoline
and diesel engines will exist in
substantial volume for some time.
Related to that on page 5, veteran
industry analyst Michael Robinet of
S&P Global continues his look at how
the shift to electrification will impact
the Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers whose
business is in traditional powertrain.
SAE readers who work in that space
are already living with the risks and
anxieties of the hydrocarbons-to-electrons
transition.
While I'm not a crystal-ball guy, I believe
history helps align present and
future. So, I dug out my reporter's notebook
from a decade ago: April 2012. It's
a record of who I spoke with and what I
saw at the 2012 New York Auto Show,
followed by the SAE High-Efficiency IC
4 April 2022
Engines Symposium. Each page in that
notebook provides interesting rearviewmirror
observations from those events:
At the 2012 NY show, Nissan's thenPowertrain
engineering
has
a new
crusade.
boss Carlos Ghosn spoke to media. He
predicted that global EV sales would
reach 10% of the overall total by 2020.
Wishful thinking! But presciently, Nissan
also was setting up a new U.S. company
for EV battery reuse, he said.
Two weeks later at SAE's advanced
engine symposium, much discussion
surrounded thermodynamic efficiency,
a quest that is eternal in the powertrain
world. " No stone can be left unturned, "
asserted Dr. David Foster
of the University of
Wisconsin. " Crevice volumes.
Friction. Rotating
inertia. Heat transfer.
Keeping in-cylinder temperatures
low, " Foster
noted, directly works toward
minimizing exhaustenergy
loss - still an aim of IC stalwarts.
Achates Power's then-CEO Dave
Johnson also presented at SAE, outlining
the thermodynamic potential for
his company's multi-fuel, opposedpiston,
2-stroke engine tech, aiming its
OPOC development at light trucks. An
engine, wonderfully compact, was
eventually demonstrated in a Ford
F-150 before electrification closed in.
The company now looks to potential
heavy-truck applications.
Downsizing. Downspeeding.
Stratified charge. Cooled EGR. Lean
burn. Concepts for reduced pumping
loss. Digital valve control. A phalanx of
boosting ideas. HCCI! No stone should
be left unturned.
A decade later, powertrain's crusade
for greater efficiency continues, with
ICE development still focused on the
above technologies. Work continues.
But now, better funded attention is
going to electric machines, power
electronics and batteries.
Lindsay Brooke, Editor-in-Chief
Lindsay Brooke
Editor-in-Chief
Lindsay.Brooke@sae.org
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Senior Editor
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AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
Automotive Engineering - April 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive Engineering - April 2022
