DaimlerChrysler Picks Delphi for Diesel Common Rail System

2 June 2005

DaimlerChrysler has awarded Delphi a contract to develop and supply a complete diesel common rail and engine management system for a current and future Mercedes engine range.

This is Delphi’s first diesel common rail application with DaimlerChrysler and the first time that DaimlerChrysler has entrusted a supplier with turnkey, complete systems responsibility, including components software and calibration.

The first phase of the project covers the applications engineering and supply of Delphi’s diesel common rail (DCR) 1600 system for passenger cars. Further phases are planned to extend the application to an additional vehicle.

The new system provides high injection pressure, improved nozzle design, superior hydraulic stability and enhanced software strategies. Delphi’s DCR 1600 delivers more complete combustion and provides more accurate control of very small volumes of fuel, introducing the option of up to five injection events.

(This sounds like the system on Mercedes’s new V8—earlier post.)

One of the many benefits is a reduction in NO_x of up to 30% through the introduction of a late-pilot injection event.

Delphi’s goal is to achieve this without compromising fuel economy or drivability and to give Mercedes the option of achieving low particulate emissions.

—Volker Barth, VP Delphi Corporation and president, Delphi Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Delphi’s diesel engine management system portfolio includes:

• Fuel injection systems (common rail, rotary injection systems, electronic unit injection systems, and electronic unit pump systems

• Engine Control Units (ECUs)

• Air management systems (exhaust gas recirculation valves, sensors)

• Exhaust aftertreatment systems (catalysts)

Other customers of Delphi’s Common Rail technology include Renault-Nissan, Ford and PAG (Jaguar), Hyundai-Kia, Ssangyong, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Tata Motors, Suzuki/Santana, and four other undisclosed customers.

In 2004, Delphi’s Diesel sales totaled roughly $1.5 billion.