Automakers race to make tiniest, peppiest engines

Chris Woodyard | USA TODAY

After ballyhooing ever-bigger V-8s for years, the auto industry is now jostling for the bragging rights when it comes to making engines as small as possible — and thus more fuel efficient.

Lately, the attention is going to those who are making the smallest engines of them all — a new breed of 1-liter, three-cylinder power plants.

Small enough for the block to fit in a suitcase, the 1-liter engine is about to launch on cars from Ford Motor. BMW is going to put three-cylinder engines in a new hybrid. General Motors has signaled it is going to make three-cylinder engines from 1 liter to 1.5 liters as well in the U.S. Even Daimler, parent of Mercedes-Benz, is showing interest.

The sudden focus on the smallest of engines reflects the marketing power of being able to advertise eye-popping miles-per-gallon totals when gas prices surge, a sea change from a decade ago when bigger was better. Now, small engines rule.

"There has been a cultural shift," says Mike Omotoso, senior manager of global powertrain for analysts LMC Automotive. "Automakers have gone from bragging about big V-8s to (promoting) gas mileage on the highway."

His forecast shows the number of engines that are 1 liter or less will rise 44% to 28.9 million worldwide in 2017. By contrast, the number of engines that are 4 liters or more will rise only about 2%, to 4.2 million, over the same period.

What automakers are doing:

• Ford. The 123-horsepower three-cylinder, 1-liter turbocharged EcoBoost engine coming to the Fiesta subcompact in the fall has been named International Engine of the Year for the second year by Engine Technology International magazine. Ford also announced plans to double production of the engine.

• BMW. A three-cylinder engine will power the i8 hybrid sports car in the U.S. And "we don't rule this engine out for (another) small-car application," says Heidelinde Holzer, BMW's head of powertrain integration. BMW thinks it has found a way to make the engine run as smoothly as a four-cylinder engine.

• GM. Some $215 million is being invested in a Flint, Mich., engine plant to make three- and four-cylinder engines, from 1 liter to 1.5 liters. Currently, GM's smallest engine is a 1.2-liter, four-cylinder power plant in the Chevrolet Spark subcompact, the likely candidate for the new engines.

• Daimler. The German parent of Mercedes-Benz and Smart recently exchanged engine information with Ford, Daimler confirms, but is adamant about making sure it is not seen as a joint venture. "There is no cooperation with Ford regarding the development of internal combustion engines," Daimler said in a statement to USA TODAY. "An informal exchange of information among (automakers) — as described with Ford — is very common in the automotive industry."

Daimler wanted information on Ford's three-cylinder engine as it tries to develop its own in collaboration with Renault-Nissan.

The move to develop smaller engines goes beyond just the 1-liter. Nissan, for instance, hopes to glean 40 miles a gallon on the highway out of the 1.6-liter, four-cylinder engine in the new Versa Note hatchback, a 6 mpg improvement from the outgoing 1.8-liter engine. The smaller engine was made possible by reducing the vehicle's weight. "It's an efficiency play," says Dan Passe, a Nissan spokesman.

But the efficiencies may have limits. By making turbochargers more efficient, automakers have increased horsepower per liter by about 10% to 15% every three years for the past decade in small engines, says Steve McKinley, a vice president of Honeywell Turbo Technologies. But it's getting harder.

"There is kind of a natural limit to downsizing," McKinley says. Just where it is, though, is yet to be seen.