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The automotive trend towards increased levels of electrification is showing a clear direction for hybrid technologies. Nowadays Mild- and plug-in-hybrids open a very wide area of future developments whereas battery electric vehicles (BEV) are still evident but still perceived as niche products with limited production volumes. Nevertheless, major OEMs are working on these kinds of vehicles and have also brought such EV concepts into series production. All of these designs show a clear trend that, beside the topic of electric traction motor and energy storage systems, the internal combustion engine (ICE) is also coming into focus again. In many of these vehicles the range extender (RE) unit is foreseen as an emergency unit to recharge the batteries if the state of charge (SOC) is too low. One of the major advantages of a BEV over other designs is the very good acoustic behavior, so the NVH performance becomes the most challenging topic for RE development.

Customers are demanding propulsion systems giving as much as possible riding pleasure while still considering strict environmental regulations. BRP-Powertrain developed an engine for their snowmobile brand Ski-Doo fulfilling both needs. The Inline two cylinder four stroke engine using a multi port fuel injection system significantly contributes to an impressive and up to now second-to-none cruising range of 29 miles per gallon. With 42 kW at 7250 1/min the performance target was achieved. Excellent combustion stability allows Lambda values of 1.1 and higher in part load. This also contributes to the good fuel efficiency. The geometrical layout of the engine was driven by vehicle boundaries. All the power pack components had to be installed using a minimum of space. A low center of gravity was an absolute need for stable riding properties of the snowmobile. Therefore the crankshaft was put as low as possible which left no room for an oil pan underneath the engine.