Volvo Car Group begins work on new engine family
Volvo Car Group has begun construction work on a new family of engine variants with high-efficiency four-cylinder builds.
The firm will be undertaking the work entirely in-house as it attempts to take further steps towards making the brand independent.
Volvo is aiming to go down the path of four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines, as well as drivelines electrification and it believes that having complete control over the development and production will ensure utmost flexibility.
"This marks a milestone in Volvo Cars' history. With our new engine family we are focusing on two additional vital properties - driving pleasure and fuel efficiency," said Derek Crabb, vice president of powertrain engineering at Volvo.
The engines are being manufacturer in the plant in Skovde, Sweden, where work has been going on for the last two years and the firm has invested two billion kronor (£200 million). All different versions are to be created on the same line to improve efficiency, although this wasn't without its difficulties.
"One of the biggest challenges was the remodelling of the line for cylinder block processing. 30 machining cells were replaced or converted at a cost of about half a billion kronor," said Oskar Falk, vice president of global engine production at Volvo.
The Volvo Engine Architecture (VEA) units are smaller and optimised to provide motorists with a higher performance and better fuel economy than the standard six-cylinder versions available with current cars.
"During the development of VEA, the starting point was our customers and what we wanted to offer them in regard to good fuel economy, low environmental impact and immense driving pleasure at an attractive price," added Mr Crabb.
Volvo aims to replace the previous eight engine architectures, with the new units to be introduced over the course of two years between now and 2015. Some 20,000 engines are to be manufactured in 2013, with the pace of production to reach 2,000 a week by the year's end.
Posted by Craig Salter