General Motors Company and SAIC Motor Corporation Ltd. are expanding their partnership to develop a new small-displacement gasoline engine family and an advanced transmission.
The agreement, signed August 18 in Shanghai, China, by GM vice chairman of global product operations Tom Stephens and SAIC president Chen Hong, represents a significant milestone that expands GM and SAIC’s relationship into powertrain development. It’s another key step in providing propulsion solutions to build the world’s best vehicles.
“The co-development of these new engines and transmissions builds on a strong history of innovation and collaboration between GM and SAIC Motor,” Stephens said. “Together, we will continue to quickly provide our customers leading-edge technologies that improve vehicle fuel efficiency and deliver robust performance.”
The new small gasoline engine, which will be offered in displacements from 1.0 liters to 1.5 liters, hits right at the heart of the global vehicle market. Its compact, lightweight design combines direct injection and turbocharging, providing customers unparalleled fuel efficiency and performance. The engine will be used by GM and SAIC Motor in China and future vehicles worldwide, providing further fuel efficiency advances beyond traditional technologies.
Engineering and development of the new engine will be carried out jointly by GM and SAIC engineers in Detroit and at the Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center (PATAC), the automakers’ engineering and design joint venture in Shanghai.
The new front-wheel-drive transmission will incorporate the latest innovations for improving fuel economy and performance. The transmission alone will provide upward of 10 percent improvement in fuel economy over today’s conventional six-speed automatic transmissions. The co-developed transmission will feature dry, dual-clutch technology. It will provide shift comfort equal to a conventional fully automatic transmission, with superior quality, while reducing CO2 emissions.
When combined, these technologies can provide up to 20 percent improvement in CO2 emissions, compared to engines and automatic transmissions in production in China today.
"These development agreements open an exciting new chapter in the partnership between SAIC and GM," said Hu Maoyuan, chairman of SAIC Motor. "Not only will they add critical green technologies to our next-generation vehicles, they will also build on the strong engineering capabilities forged as a part of GM and SAIC's corporate responsibility."
