Future fuel economy targets represent a significant challenge to the automotive industry. While a range of technologies are in research and development to address this challenge, they all bring additional cost and complexity to future products. The most cost effective solutions are likely to be combinations of technologies that in isolation might have limited advantages but in a systems approach can offer complementary benefits. This presentation describes work carried out at Ricardo to explore Intelligent Electrification and the use of Stratified Charge Lean Combustion in a spark ignition engine. This includes a next generation Spray Guided Direct Injection SI engine combustion system operating robustly with highly stratified dilute mixtures and capable of close to 40% thermal efficiency with very low engine-out NOx emissions. The use of micro-hybrid functionality for energy recovery, e-boost technology for enhanced transient response, advanced thermal systems for octane control and a low cost energy storage system have been explored to provide an Intelligent Electrification approach to systems engineering. This combination of technologies is shown to be highly cost effective in comparison with full hybrid systems.

Presenter
Mark J. Christie, Ricardo Inc.