In the last three months of 2004, the European car market was running at about 51% diesel penetration, according to Alexandre Ismail, vice president and general manager Europe at turbocharger market leader Honeywell, and the turbo share on diesels, including the light commercial vehicle segment, is expected to be close to 100% during 2005.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Turbocharger growth in Europe is expected to come from growing fitment rates on petrol engines, Ismail said. The turbocharger fitment on petrol engines is currently around 6%, “but it’s going to grow to 15 to 20% in the next 10 years”.
“I don’t know any major company that has not got a significant gasoline programme” Ismail added.
The driving force behind the expected growth is the EU target for CO2 reduction by 2012.
A new generation of gasoline direct injection (GDI) engines are expected to offer increased performance together with increased control ability with turbocharging.
New designs with more precise electronically controlled actuation systems will allow increased reliability and performance.
These new engines should take off faster than the first generations of GDI engines, because as well as being more efficient they are more fun to drive, said Ismail.
The new engine generation will allow car makers to downsize engines and gain significant fuel economies without compromising performance and drivability.
The fastest growth will probably be in turbocharged petrol engines of two litres or more.
Turbocharged petrol engines have been associated with high performance in motor sports for a long time, and Honeywell has worked on Formula One engines as well as with Audi for Le Mans.
Honeywell will introduce the variable geometry turbochargers developed for diesel applications on petrol engines in the next five or six years.
Low-cost manufacturing and development of growing importance
The growth in turbocharger applications will be world-wide, said Ismail. Honeywell is developing global turbocharger manufacturing in order to meet emerging market demand and develop a low-cost manufacturing capability.
Within Europe, Honeywell has been investing in its plant in Romania to accommodate the region’s growing demand. By the end of 2005, it will be manufacturing almost two million turbochargers a year in Romania out of Honeywell’s European total of 6.6 million.
Honeywell also has more than 100 engineers in Shanghai, where over the last two years it has developed significant research and engineering capability. While the heart of the company’s turbocharger activity research and development remains in Europe, the Shanghai operation has material and design capability as well as testing and simulation facilities.
Ismail is also responsible for the Indian market and sees strong growth prospects there in the medium term. Honeywell is developing new manufacturing operations in India that will start production before the end of 2005 to serve the local OEMs such as Tata, Mahindra and Mahindra, and Maruti, as well as new entrants such as Hyundai.
Strong growth in the diesel share of the Indian market is expected.
SupplierBusiness.com
