I maybe didn’t explain the point of all of that last post. It’s this: if you’re forced to sell (or barter) electric cars to get your mix right for the CO2 emissions, you don’t want to sell cheap petrol cars the rest of the time. Instead you want to make sure every car you sell above your emissions limit is a serious profit spinner. And throwing a load of tech at a small city car to get its own emissions down ends up making it a small, expensive car. There’s not much market for that. That’s why VW has got rid of the turbocharged VW Up engines (except for the silly GTI). Turbocharged with direct injection leads to high NOX and particulate emissions, like diesels, and then you wind up needing exhaust after-treatment. It all ends up costing a lot.
About the new 500 Hybrid, it’s already been mentioned that it’s the mildest of mild hybrids (a 12 volt, 5 horsepower Valeo starter-generator with a small 0.13 kWh battery under the left seat). It should make the stop-start system smoother at least. Minimally complex too, as far as these things go. I wonder if they’re using the same air-conditioning compressor.
More interesting is the new engine. This is a 1 litre, 3 cylinder, naturally aspirated, non-direct injection petrol with just 2 valves per cylinder (= high swirl and torque and efficiency at low revs where engines spend most of their lives in the real world), a single camshaft driven by a timing chain, continuously variable valve timing, 10 mm crankshaft offset for lower piston friction on the ‘bang’ part of the cycle when cylinder pressure is highest, and a very high compression ratio (12:1), all mated to a 6-speed gearbox with a top gear 5% longer than before. The new engine is taller so had to be mounted lower, lowering the centre of gravity by some 45 mm too. The gearbox uses a special lubricant and other friction-killing techniques.
That all sounds pretty appealing to me. The real-world fuel economy is bound to be a lot better than with the older turbocharged or bigger 4 cylinder engines. Not so much because of the hybrid (although that will definitely help in slow traffic) but because a tiny, 2-valve, high-compression engine with a load of friction-reducing tech and a 6-speed transmission, properly used, is going to be very efficient.
And because the engine is simple, it’s likely to be reliable. At least you’ll get lower bills if something goes wrong.
I have a Citroën C1 and think three-cylinder naturally aspirated petrol engines are brilliant. I’m not a teenager or an insecure man having a mid-life crisis, so I don’t give a hoot that it only has 70 horsepower. That’s enough to cruise at 130 km/h with ease.
