Engines

The most important green-car story of 2017 came on September 10, in a report by the Associated Press that covered articles in two Chinese state media outlets on a statement by a deputy industry minister. Speaking at "an auto industry forum," the AP wrote, Xin Guobin said his ministry has begun...

The industry trade journal WardsAuto has been giving out "Best Engine" awards for 24 years now, and this year's list includes some interesting choices. For starters, there are no engines from German manufacturers on the list: The sole luxury recipients this year are Infiniti and Jaguar. But more...

The very first working four-cycle internal-combustion engine was invented by Niklaus Otto in 1876, and in due course it changed the world. A quarter of a century later, gasoline engines, steam-powered vehicles, and electric drive competed on an equal basis, but by 1915, it was clear the gasoline...

Earlier this month, Japanese automaker Mazda laid out its future powertrain strategy and dropped a massive announcement in the process. In 2019, Mazda will introduce a gasoline-powered Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition engine, dubbed Skyactiv-X, that the automaker promises will offer huge...

Continental, a major supplier for automakers around the world, has come out with a bold prediction: internal-combustion engine development by German automakers will essentially end by the year 2025. The supplier, which makes exhaust-gas-cleaning systems for diesel cars and nitrogen oxide-measuring...

Small Japanese automaker Mazda is in a tough spot. It's been on its own for most of a decade now, after Ford sold its shares in the company, and now Mazda must fund numerous new models all by itself. With global sales of just 1.5 million vehicles, it's one-seventh the size of Toyota or Volkswagen...

Not so many years ago, a 1.2-liter engine would only have been found in the U.S. in the smallest and least impressive of subcompact cars. It might have been a 3-cylinder, and certainly wouldn't have had even 100 horsepower. But times change, and engines of that size will soon be found even in the...

To most North Americans, the idea of banning all vehicles with internal-combustion engines seems unthinkable. Filling up with gasoline (or diesel) is as American as are dispersed low-density suburbs without mass transit, bike paths, or even sidewalks. Europeans, more of whom live in cities and most...

Sometimes interesting predictions come buried inside a completely different topic. Take, for example, an investment note on the auto-parts supplier Continental contained in a roundup of industry research, market analysis, and news items issued yesterday by investment bank UBS. It contains the...

Infiniti's VC-T is the first variable compression-ratio engine to enter production.

Two alternative powertrains are among Ward's 2015 "10 Best Engines."

It's a vision that seems like something from a future century: a carmaker preparing to phase out combustion engines altogether. The notion that an entire brand could walk away from the hydrocarbon-fueled engines that power more than 1 billion vehicles on our roads--and have done since 1885--is...

Most internal combustion engines are incredibly inefficient at turning fuel burned into usable energy. The efficiency by which they do so is measured in terms of "thermal efficiency", and most gasoline combustion engines average around 20 percent thermal efficiency. Diesels are typically...

Yesterday's announcement by General Motors that it would launch a new line of three- and four-cylinder Ecotec engines for better fuel economy was short on some details. Notably, the carmaker only gave two examples of future cars they would power--and even declined to identify the three existing...

General Motors is stepping up its engine game. Today it released first details of a new range of three- and four-cylinder Ecotec engines from 1.0 to 1.5 liters that replace no fewer than three separate engine families globally. GM had already shown one variant, a new turbocharged 1.0-liter...

You might think that a list of the best engines on sale would be dominated by screaming sports car engines or a muscular V-8 from the latest muscle car. And while it's true that both feature on the Wards Automotive list of its 2014 Ten Best Engines, as well as several other high-performance units...

Volkswagen will eliminate the last of its naturally-aspirated engines as models are refreshed or redesigned.

History makes fools of us all sometimes, none more so than when we dismiss certain ideas out of hand, only for them to come back years later and eat our words. That's why we're always intrigued by companies claiming to reinvent the engine. One of them might well do so, given the right resources...

With a raft of new diesel vehicles entering the market this year and next, the question arises: Who exactly will buy them? Based on the results of a survey to be released later this morning, Volkswagen of America suggests that some drivers of gasoline cars are likely to be open to the benefits of...

How do you get better gas mileage from engines that create the same power as what you've built your brand on? If you're BMW, the answer is that you launch an entirely new family of small engines derived from the world-famous inline six-cylinders you're famous for. But if you're fitting them with...