Archive for International News

Subaru Europe President Hiroyuki Ikeda announced at the 2006 Paris Motor Show that the upcoming horizontally opposed 4-cylinder turbodiesel engine by Subaru is almost complete, with development at final stages now.

Subaru’s gasoline boxer won the top spot for the 2.5 liter category in this year’s International Engine of the Year Awards, and the new turbodiesel boxer will be the first oil burning boxer in the world.

The new turbodiesel boxer engine by Subaru is expected to be unveiled at the 2007 Geneva Motor Show.

According to a report by China Knowledge, Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd has scrapped it’s plans to set up an automotive assembly plant in Malaysia. Previously it applied to start assembling cars in the 1.3 liter and 1.5 liter range here in Malaysia together with it’s local partner Information Gateway Corp Sdn Bhd (IGC) at a plant in Kuantan. Assembly was expected to begin in October 2006 with the Geely CK sedan. Total investment was expected to be in the RM100 million range.

First they were faced with a 20:80 local distribution to export ratio, and recently the government decided to only approve assembly of cars with 1.6 liters of displacement and above. I suppose when you are faced with so much problems even before you put your money in, anyone would just walk away – Geely has decided to take it’s business elsewhere and has decided to set up an assembly plant in Indonesia instead.

As for Cam Soh’s Information Gateway Corp Sdn Bhd (IGC), they will begin importing Geely cars in from Indonesia for sale shortly. 1.6 liter models and above will be assembled locally in Oriental Assemblers Sdn Bhd’s plant in Johor Bahru by year-end.

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Toyota has revaled the new flagship Toyota Yaris model called the Toyota Yaris TS at the 2006 Paris Motor Show. The new Toyota Yaris TS is powered by Toyota’s new flagship Dual VVT-i 1.8 liter engine which makes 130bhp at 6,000rpm and max torque of 173Nm at 4,400rpm, compared to the Yaris 1.5 liter’s 109hp at 6,000rpm and 142Nm of torque at 4,200rpm. With the new Dual VVT-i engine, Valve timing is adjusted on both intake and exhaust valves. This engine is mated to a 5-speed manual gearbox. The little hatch goes from 0-100km/h in 9.3 seconds.

Other enhancements to the Toyota Yaris TS over the base model include suspension improvements – the front suspension has been reinforced, gains a thicker anti-roll bar and a linking rod has been introduced between the rear suspension members. The ride is also lowered by 8mm.

Other than ride height, further external differences include a new black mesh grille with a TS badge, darkened headlamps, a deeper bumper with integrated foglights, a new rear bumper with integrated exhaust tailpipes and fog lights, as well as new LED rear lamp clusters. Look from the side and you will see nice 17 inch alloy wheels that fill up the wheel arches as well as deep side skirts. There is also a roof spoiler for the rear.

Both three-door and five-door versions of the Toyota Yaris TS will be on sale from February 2007. More photos after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of 2007 Toyota Yaris TS 1.8 Dual VVT-i

Audi launched three new engines at the 2006 Paris Motor Show – one being a new 2.8 liter V6 FSI engine with Audi’s new valvelift system, a new 1.8 liter Turbo FSI engine and a new more powerful variant of the venerable 2.0 liter Turbo FSI engine that will find it’s way into the new Audi S3 hot hatch.

The new 2.8 liter V6 FSI engine which will debut in the Audi A6 makes 210hp at 5,500rpm as well as a constant peak torque wave of 280Nm between 3,000rpm and 5,000rpm. The new engine is a shorter stroke version of it’s 3.2 liter big brother, 82.4mm instead of 92.8mm, and retains the same bore of 84.5mm, making it a slightly oversquare configuration. The engine uses an alloy crankcase which gives it a weight of only 165kg. Precise 100 bar pressure FSI direct injection allows a high compression ratio of 12.0:1.

New to the engine is Audi’s valvelift system which gives the engine two valve lift profiles on the intake cam. The higher cam profile opens valve through 11mm, while the other cam opens the intake valves at two different lifts – one at 5.7mm and the other at 2mm. This is deliberately done for a swirl and tumble flow effect for intake air. The transition between the two cam profiles is smoothened out via a combination of tricks like temporary retardation of ignition, adjustment of camshafts and closing of throttle valves.

A slightly different style of how an engine is built is shown in the form of the new 1.8 Turbo FSI engine. The new 1.8 TFSI engine has higher pressure six-hole injectors – up to 150 bar. A watercooled Borg Warner K03 turbocharger gives the 1.8 TFSI engine a good torque figure of 165Nm at just 1,000rpm, and this peaks at 250Nm slightly further up in the rev range at 1,500rpm – this figure stretches all the way up to 4,200rpm. Peak horsepower is 160hp from 5,000rpm to 6,200rpm. Compression ratio is lower than the 2.0 TFSI though, at only 9.6:1 compression.

The final engine is the new motor that goes into the Audi S3 hot hatch, an updated 2.0 TFSI with a higher power of 265bhp at 6,000rpm and a stronger peak torque of 320Nm constant up to 5,000rpm. To keep up with the stronger boost, the engine features pistons with stronger pins, stronger conrods and a reinforced cylinder block made of a new highly heat-resistant alloy.

Click here to read the rest of Audi debuts new 2.8 FSI V6, 1.8 TFSI and 2.0 TFSI

Honda announced it’s new second generation i-CTDi engine today, featuring a new NOx catalytic converter which significantly reduces NOx emissions to meet stringent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Tier II Bin 5 emissions requirements.

The new NOx catalytic converter converts toxic nitrogen oxide (NOx) into harmless nitrogen (N2) through a two-layer structure. In the first layer, some of the NOx reacts with hydrogen (H2) to produce ammonia (NH3). Ammonia is stored, then used in the second layer to reduce NOx into N2.

The development of the new NOx filter was done on the Super Clean Tier II Bin 5 diesel engine research vehicle – which is an European market Honda Accord (shown above).

1. During lean burn operation, the NOx adsorbent in the lower layer adsorbs NOx from the exhaust gas.
2. As needed, the engine management system adjusts the engine air-fuel ratio to rich-burn, wherein the NOx in the NOx adsorption layer reacts with hydrogen (H2) obtained from the exhaust gas to produce ammonia (NH3). The adsorbent material in the upper layer temporarily adsorbs the NH3.
3. When the engine returns to lean-burn operation, NH3 adsorbed in the upper layer reacts with NOx in the exhaust gas and reduces it to harmless nitrogen (N2).

Source: Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Honda has announced it’s next generation VTEC engine, the Advanced VTEC engine (AVTEC) which will make it’s debut in a production car within the next three years. Honda’s new Advanced VTEC (AVTEC) engine combines continuously variable valve lift and timing control with the continuously variable phase control of valve timing to achieve a good combination of better performance, fuel economy, and lower emissions. This is an improvement over the i-VTEC system which has preset changeover settings in valve lift – the new AVTEC system can adjust the valve lift continuously. There is also a variable-length intake manifold to improve intake airflow.

The Advanced VTEC (AVTEC) system allows optimum control over intake valve lift and phase in response to driving conditions for a significant increase in torque across the engine rev range. Under low and medium loads, the valves are set to have low lift and early closure – this reduces pumping losses and subsequently improves fuel economy.

The new AVTEC system will allow for a 13% improvement in fuel economy over the current i-VTEC range of engines. The 13% figure was obtained comparing the current K24A 2.4 liter i-VTEC engine with a new 2.4 liter AVTEC equivalent. Emissions are compliant with US LEV2-ULEV standards and Japanese Low-Emission Vehicles standards with levels 75% lower than 2005 standards.

The next Toyota Corolla-based hatchback that will be sold in the European market will be called the Toyota Auris – a Latin word which means ‘good taste’. Toyota had trademarked the Auris name way back in April 2005, more than a year ago! The sedan models will continue to be called the Toyota Corolla though, but Toyota is of the opinion that the modern refresh of the hatch needs a new name.

The Toyota Auris takes on similiar design cues to the Toyota Yaris hatch, with a pronounced bulgy bonnet, a familiar front grille and bold headlamps. The bumper looks similiar to the design of the facelifted Toyota Vios. Engine options will feature Toyota’s new flagship 1.8 liter unit, as well as a 2.2 liter D4-D turbodiesel.

Related Posts:
More next-gen Toyota Corolla previews
JDM 2007 Toyota Corolla magazine scan

We have more details on Group Lotus’ plan to turnaround the company within the next 5 years. Previous details on the plan revealed plans to produce more of it’s own cars, re-engineer third party cars, as well as expand it’s engineering consultancy business. More details about those details at this post.

Further details reveal that the flagship Lotus Esprit will be postponed to a end 2009, making it a 2010 model. Lotus says it needs more time to “insert more Lotus DNA” to ensure global competitiveness. Rumours previously had it that Lotus was to release the Esprit next year. The new Lotus Esprit is expected to be a mid-engine, rear wheel dirve layout and could use a 4.8 liter V8 DOHC unit from BMW, making more than 400 horsepower, which would be a real rocket combined with the Lotus philosophy of performance through weight reduction.

In the meanwhile, Lotus announced it will introduce a new mid-market level model in May 2008, as well as a new 4-seater high-performance model in collaboration with Proton – are we going to see a Proton car being tuned up in the style of the Lotus Carlton? Bernama reports that this model will be based on the Proton Satria Neo. The Lotus line-up currently includes the Elise, the Exige and the Europa.

As part of it’s efforts to cut costs, Group Lotus also announced 200 job cuts in it’s manufacturing workforce. The Hethel plant workforce suffers because of the US market slowdown, which is the company’s biggest market. Rather than calling it downsizing, officials have said it is more of a “right-sizing.”

There are some rumours of Proton selling off Lotus like what it did to MV Agusta, but Proton’s MD Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir was quick to clarify that there are no such plans, not now and not in the future. He was quoted to say “We will make sure that Lotus will work. We must ensure Lotus is a success; there is no other way.”

Related Posts:
Group Lotus 5-year turnaround plan.

Oil prices seems to have settled down at the US$60-65 level, with prices currently standing at US$62 per barrel, slightly up from US$60 per barrel on Wednesday.

The oil price madness began in February this year, where from a level of about US$58, oil prices began to go up till it reached a record price of US$78.40 last month, fueled by tension in Iran and Nigeria as well as other international political issues like nuclear testing conflicts. Oil prices should remain stable between the US$60 to US$65 range, unless Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) decides to review output policies and cut supplies, or some other hoo haa happens in the international scene.

So with the extra subsidy that the government has allocated for our petrol subsidies in the recently announced budget, it’s expected that the fuel prices in our country should not go up by a very large margin anytime soon.

While the company has been pretty much silent in Malaysia since it’s launch, LMG Auto will be displaying it’s LMG cars at the 2006 Oman Motor Show. Anyone have any news on LMG? For those who are out of the loop, LMG recently launched two new cars in Malaysia – the LMG Tourer and the LMG Trekker. Both are powered by a hybrid combination of a Mitsubishi 2.4 liter SOHC engine combined with a hydrogen injection system that they call Hydroxene, which creates hydrogene from water.

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