Mazda introducing 1.3L direct injection gasoline engine as first SKYACTIV-G unit
18 May 2011
|
1.3L SKYACTIV-G. Click to enlarge. |
The first of Mazda Motor Corporation’s next-generation SKYACTIV technologies (earlier post) to be introduced to the market will be the SKYACTIV-G 1.3 direct-injection 1.3-liter gasoline engine. Mazda will unveil the engine at the Automotive Engineering Exposition that will be held from 18 – 20 May at the Pacifico Yokohama convention center near Tokyo, Japan.
The SKYACTIV-G 1.3 features a high compression ratio (for a regular gasoline mass production automobile engine) of 14.0:1 and exhibits high efficiency, especially under high load at low rpm. In order to avoid knocking, the SKYACTIV-G 1.3 features a number of new technologies, such as piston cavities that are specially designed to support optimized combustion, and multi-hole injectors that enable precise fuel injection control.
SKYACTIV-G 1.3 (w i-stop) | |
---|---|
Displacement | 1.298L |
Bore and stroke | 71.0mm x 82.0mm |
Compression ratio | 14.0:1 |
Maximum output (net) | 62 kW @5,400rpm |
Maximum torque (net) | 112 N·m @4,000rpm |
Mazda plans to introduce the SKYACTIV-G 1.3 to the Japanese market in the facelifted Mazda Demio (known overseas as the Mazda2) during the first half of 2011. It will be the first 1.3-liter direct-injection gasoline engine to be equipped in a compact car manufactured in Japan. Combined with an updated version of Mazda’s idling stop system, i-stop, and a continuously variable transmission (CVT), SKYACTIV-G 1.3 will achieve fuel economy of 30 km/L (71 mpg US, 3.33 L/100km) under Japan’s 10-15 mode test cycle.
Mazda’s i-stop is an intelligent proprietary engine stop-start system. The system precisely controls the positions of the pistons during engine shutdown, and then uses Mazda’s direct injection technology to perform a combustion restart. The updated version operates with a higher frequency, requires less fuel to restart, and achieves a smoother restart.
Mazda has applied for more than 130 patents in relation to the engine as of the end of February, 2011.
SKYACTIV is the umbrella term for Mazda’s range of next-generation technologies—including gasoline and diesel engines, transmissions, and a new body and chassis—that significantly improve vehicle driving dynamics as well as environmental and safety performance. The SKYACTIV-G 1.3 that is equipped in the facelifted Mazda Demio adopts all of Mazda’s SKYACTIV engine technologies except for the exhaust manifold. It also features other new components that are exclusive to the Demio, such as a cooled EGR system.
The engine also features Mazda’s first dual sequential valve timing system (dual S-VT with electronically-operated intake) which, in combination with the high compression ratio, achieves an unconventional Miller cycle (extremely delayed closure of intake valves) that improves efficiency.
Other features of the engines include:
- Compact combustion chambers have a longer stroke for better efficiency;
- Piston cavities are specially designed to support ideal combustion;
- 30% less mechanical friction, due to a narrower crankshaft, new roller followers and low-tension piston rings that also reduce oil consumption;
- Various countermeasures to prevent knocking, including a cooled EGR system; and
- A lightweight and highly rigid aluminum alloy engine block.
Sounds super, how much more than the current 1.3 will it cost, and what are the performance and economy figures for the Demio ?
30 Km/L in a real car is really impressive, especially if it costs < 70-80% of a Prius.
Also, what will the figures be on the US and Eu driving cycles, and in real life.
Time (and a few reviews) will tell.
Posted by: mahonj | 18 May 2011 at 05:55 AM
This is just really smart engine design. Props to Mazda.
Posted by: GreenPlease | 18 May 2011 at 07:08 AM
This is the near-term future of the ICE: light, DI, idle-stop, highly efficient and cheaper than hybrid or diesel. Mass adoption of this kind of technology in the short term will make a much bigger difference than niche adoption of EVs and hybrids.
I wonder if an after market to re-power existing gas guzzlers with new, efficient power trains might develop. Instead of converting your $30K+ luxe F150 to a plugin for big bucks, just convert to Ecoboost for medium bucks?
Posted by: Nick Lyons | 18 May 2011 at 08:52 AM
It is amazing, that suddenly, just about all car makers are finding ways to improve the efficiency of their ICE by 50+%. Is this the way to block the arrival of improved HEVs, PHEVs and BEVs and to extend the life of an obsolete technology?
Posted by: HarveyD | 18 May 2011 at 10:36 AM
All the speculation that EV would soon become mainstream is based on 2 false assumptions.
1 : battery technology will progress so fast that EV can compete with ICE powered car
2 : ICE will no improve
I have no doubt that EV is the future of passenger cars, but it will take more time than some think here, decades.
ICE have a lot of room for improvment and as it is an established technology, ICE progress will go faster than battery progress
Posted by: Treehugger | 18 May 2011 at 12:02 PM
Hybridization like the Prius has a good future.
It places lower requirements on battery technology and can be implemented more cheaply than full EVs.
When combined with very efficient petrol or diesel ICEs, you have a very low consumption car.
As people become more familiar with hybridisation in terms of building them and programming them, the performance will continue to improve as the price decreases.
As battery cost reduces, they will be able to convert to PHEVs with more and more electric miles.
With a proper "engine mapping", it should be possible to change the battery capacity and characteristics without major engineering work, like putting a bigger hard disk into a laptop.
We may never see EV penetration > 50% for the simple reason that there is a "long tail" of journey lengths and it just isn't worth doubling or quadrupling the battery sizes for 5% or 2% of the journeys.
So I think the PHEV is the ultimate car design, you can chose to do 50, 70, 80, 90% of your driving on electric power (based on battery size) but you never bother going to 100% (except for city cars), because it is much simpler to use an ICE or range extender to do the last 10% of journeys.
Posted by: mahonj | 18 May 2011 at 01:22 PM
Yes, ICE have a long way to go from 18 % to 60 % efficiency but they may never reach the 90% EV efficiency potential.
Posted by: HarveyD | 18 May 2011 at 01:23 PM
I look at getting the power into the batteries as a lost, out of the batteries as a loss, through the controller as a loss and the motors as a lost. Add all those up and an EV might be 70% efficient.
That is much better than 20% with a gasoline car, but if you took the fuel, put it in a generator and charged the EV, you would be right back where you started. Which is pretty much what a range extender is.
Posted by: SJC | 18 May 2011 at 02:04 PM
I'll be surprised if this car can achieve '50%' better fuel efficiency in 'real-life'.
Posted by: Pierre | 18 May 2011 at 04:54 PM
Let's say we have a tremendous breakthrough in battery technology and can store 10x the energy in the same package as today's best lithium batteries. The Tesla Roadster now has a range of over 2000 miles, or a quarter-size pack with a range of 500 miles. Great! But how do you fill your 'tank'? To pour those electrons into the battery pack in a reasonable time (assuming super fast charging is part of the breakthrough), you need a humungous charger, well past the capability of your average home electrical service. I think the ubiquitous infrastructure and fast fueling advantage of liquid fuels favors plugin hybrids over pure EVs for the foreseeable future, regardless of the state of battery technology.
Highly efficient ICEs are going to be a central part of most future cars for a long time to come.
Posted by: Nick Lyons | 18 May 2011 at 05:42 PM
Nick
Why would you need 500 miles range ? do you often drive 500 miles in a single day ? and if you intend to do regularly long range driving sure a plug-in might be a best choice for you.
But I agree ICE is not obsolete, it is as ridiculous to say ICE is obsolete as saying steam engine are obsolete, steal might be seen as a technology of the 19th century, but 90% of electricity today is made using steam.Like steam is irreplaceable in many applications, ICE will stay irreplaceable for a long time to come in many applications, even if EV take their share of the market. As for the 90% efficiency of electric car don't forget the efficiency of the storage that is about 90% so we are in the 80% then remove the self discharge and the fact that electricity generation is 40% form fossil fuel, the well to wheel of EV is not that much better than ICE and the Carbon footprint of EV is more than an ICE powered car as most of electricity is made from coal, and nat gas
Posted by: Treehugger | 18 May 2011 at 07:59 PM
@Treehugger:
I live in Alaska, and occasionally take long road trips. There's a whole lot of emptiness up here, and a 500 mile range would be cool with me. As it is, I make do with over 400 mile range with my 2000 Honda Odyssey, which can do 24mpg on a road trip, even fully loaded.
Posted by: Nick Lyons | 18 May 2011 at 08:52 PM
So, this article must be about EVs and batteries...
Do you really think that the developers of the Mazda engine care about EVs and battery development? I think they are more concerned about the competitor’s ICE and that they want to beat them by any means (at a reasonable cost, of course…).
Posted by: Peter_XX | 18 May 2011 at 10:26 PM
Since I think plugin series hybrids are the future I'm glad for any improvements in batteries, capacitors, engines, motors, fuel cells, controllers, aerodynamics, light weighting, bio-fuels, electric power generation, and so on. Don't get hung up on anyone thing, Imagine a Volt that's lighter, cheaper, which has wheel motors that have conquered all the drawbacks, that has a 100mile battery only range, with a more efficient and smaller more power dense ICE engine. A car like that may reduce fossil fuel usage by 90% and if we add a quality bio-fuel then maybe you reduce your fossil fuel usage to 0% for transportation- still would of course have to tackle electricity production but that's doable too.
Posted by: Bill | 18 May 2011 at 11:30 PM
The typical car dumped on consumers maintained the "twenty something" mpg for a hundred years.
Then a few EVs are sold, not crushed, and two or three times the mpg ICE cars appear..
Posted by: kelly | 19 May 2011 at 05:09 AM
Mazda only has one vehicle that is hybrid and that is the Tribute which is a Ford Escape hybrid. I would expect them to offer something that implies that the consumer really does not need a hybrid at all.
Americans may not like a small engine and small car. They may like Escape, Highlander, Camry, Altima or Fusion hybrids that offer more room and good mileage. The Honda Civic hybrid has a 1300 cc engine, but it also has a motor for assist.
Posted by: SJC | 19 May 2011 at 09:42 AM
PHEVs will be the common sense electrified long range vehicles for the next 10 to 15 years. As batteries progressively improve, the on-board genset or ICE or FC range extender will get smaller and eventually become obsolete and mostly unjustified.
Generating cleaner power for electrified vehicles is not the major challenge that so many are trying to make it to be. As long as the wind, sunlight, waves, hydro-plants, geothermals etc are there, (for a few more billion years) the world will never be short of clean e-energy.
By 2020/2030, many will have their own clean energy solar source and enough storage for their e-vehicles and most household needs.
Posted by: HarveyD | 19 May 2011 at 10:10 AM
I can imagine a Camry, Altima or Fusion hybrid with more batteries and a plug becoming popular, if they can keep the price down. This is not rocket science, but if they are just shifting sales from higher margin non HEV/PHEV cars, then that may not be so good for the bottom line.
Posted by: SJC | 19 May 2011 at 10:38 AM
HarveyD
Nice dreams you have… The whole of Europe is already short of clean electricity. In Sweden, we may have to shut down our ageing nuclear power plants within a few years. Japan has clearly showed us that we should not build any new ones. The alternatives will not cover the mentioned reduction in power production capacity and, even if we could achieve that, it would be better for us (and for climate change) that we export this surplus electricity to replace coal and natural gas power plants on the European continent. Why should we plan for using electricity that we do not have in EVs that do not exist (or else, do not meet any reasonable cost criteria)? HEVs would be the first goal, then PHEVs and finally maybe EREVs as a further evolution of the former ones but I cannot see any rationale in planning for EVs at this stage. Improving ICEs makes sense for all the mentioned options and Mazda should have credit for showing that not only downsizing but also thermodynamic “tricks” can give good results.
Posted by: Peter_XX | 20 May 2011 at 05:53 AM
I don't think any of the posters commented on the price of gas.
How the ICE/EV battle works out surely has to do with the relative price of gas and electricity. If gas an electricity prices were to triple, to $12 per gallon and $0.30 per kWh, my guess is it wouldn't matter how efficient ICE got, they couldn't compete.
Posted by: www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnjSHy7cbuMbebC2_-FtENA23sxl3KcQtA | 20 May 2011 at 08:29 AM
Did anyone notice 62 kW is equal to 83 hp?
And 112 Nm is equal to 82 lb.ft.?
The current Mazda2 with a 1.5L is not a 'fast' car, will one with a 1.3L Skyactiv engine sell in the U.S.?
Posted by: Pierre | 22 May 2011 at 10:17 AM