Skoda says its new EA211-series 1.0 TSI petrol engines now feature an ultra-thin plasma coating instead of cast-iron cylinder liners. It claims the resultant low-friction coating reduces fuel consumption, emissions and weight in the new EVO-generation three-cylinder engines.
The company has put a new processing line for plasma coating into operation at its main Mladá Boleslav plant in the Czech Republic.
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It says the technically innovative concept allows conventional cylinder liners to be replaced with a powder coating that measures just 0.15 mm (the wall of a conventional cylinder liner is 4 mm thick) and will now be used when producing the new EVO three-cylinder engines from the EA211 series to reduce internal friction.
Christian Bleiel, Head of Component Production at Skoda said of the new coating: "It reduces friction losses and thus also fuel consumption. What's more, this type of coating also allows heat to be more evenly distributed within the cylinders and helps it to dissipate more efficiently, thus optimising the thermal load. We produce the plasma-coated engines at Mladá Boleslav in three shifts and are installing them in the Fabia, Scala, Octavia, Kamiq and Karoq."
This means that the engines featuring plasma coating are also used in the Skoda Octavia e-TEC mild hybrids. The Czech car manufacturer has added an assembly line with two special fixtures for plasma coating at its main plant. Both of these include two torches. Skoda says it has invested a total of EUR28.8m in upgrading the plant in this way and overall, says it has spent EUR69.1m on modernising engine production.
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