Vienna, Austria - Volkswagen has shown the International Vienna Motor Symposium a glimpse of powertrains to come with a new 447kW W12 TSI, a family of small, high-revving turbodiesels and a startlingly potent little TSI turbopetrol triple.
Friedrich Eichler, head of powertrain development head for the Volkswagen brand, explained that the new W12 combined two fuel-injection principles that had previously been used in parallel: Audi's FSI direct injection and Bentley's TMPI multi-point injection.
The result, he explained, was a dual system with high-pressure direct and low-pressure manifold injection, together with twin-scroll biturbo charging and individual cylinder bank deactivation (on the left in the direction of travel).
Cylinder bores with APS coating instead of cast-iron liners reduce both weight and friction losses, as do a switchable oil pump (It’s a measure of how wide VW is casting its net that this high-performance supercar engine has an oil circuit suitable for off-road use!) a cooling system with integrated temperature management, engine management with two controllers as well as an idle-stop function to reduce fuel consumption and emissions.
It even has adaptive engine mounts with hydraulic basic damping as well as electromagnetic actuators to counteract engine vibration with phase-shifted counter-vibration.
All of which combines to produce 447kW at 6000 revs and 900Nm from 1500-4500rpm, with CO2 emissions of less than 250g/km in the New European Driving Cycle. Depending on what you drop it into, Eichler reckons it should be good for 0-100 in less than four seconds and tops speeds on the scary side of 300km/h.
We can’t help wondering what it would take to shoehorn the new W12 into an Audi R8…
HIGH-SPEED DIESELS
Presenting the EU6 TDI family of two-litre turbodiesel engines for light commercial vehicles, Jörn Kahrstedt, head of diesel engine development for the Volkswagen brand, emphasised that they were designed to counter the public perception of small turbodiesels, with beefy torque curves and improved bottom-end power to counter turbo lag.
To undercut the legal requirements for NOx and particle raw emissions for the EU6 emissions standard, it has a common-rail system operating at 2000 bar, along with a new low-temperature/high-pressure exhaust gas recirculation system and a water-cooled charge air cooler, while a variable-length intake manifold provides the necessary flow swirl when running at partial load.
The exhaust gases are then scrubbed by a diesel particulate filter and an SCR catalytic converter.
Based on Volkswagen’s modular diesel component system, they’re already on the market in the new Multivan and Transporter models.
There are four versions in production, covering a range from 62-150kW and 220-450Nm. The first three come with a variable-geometry turbo, while the 150kW top dog with newly developed dual-stage turbocharger layout has a variable-geometry impeller in the high-pressure stage.
FUTURE OUTLOOK
Dr Heinz-Jakob Neusser, Volkswagen Group head of powertain development, concluded this year's International Vienna Motor Symposium with an outlook on the future of mobility, emphasising that high-speed diesels point the way to the future of the internal combustion engine in many respects.
With high-efficiency combustion methods, innovative thermal management, maximal charging thanks to e-boosters as well as new materials and coatings, these state-of-the-art TDI engines are already capable of achieving a power output of more than 100kW per litre.
Neusser also presented a high-performance three-cylinder TSI based on the EA211 engine. Using development data from the VW Polo S2000 WRC engine, it’s capable of generating 200kW from just one litre, thanks to a monoscroll turbocharger and e-booster.
"A nice example of just how much potential combustion engines still have in them", smiled Neusser.
The industry had changed more rapidly and more extensively in the past few years than in the preceding decades, he said, but environmentally friendly mobility remained the key topic for the industry.
"Customers demand reduced consumption and lower emissions - and politics also makes high demands on the automotive industry.”
Although the Volkswagen group had a wide range of powertrains under development - ranging from petrol and diesel engines to natural gas vehicles, plug-in hybrids, pure electric cars and potentially even fuel-cell cars - he emphasised that “optimising the internal combustion engine is still an important field of innovation”.
Nevertheless, Neusser said he saw digitalisation as the greatest challenge, because infotainment, assistance systems and networking had come to be at least as important to many customers as engine performance.
"The Golf R Touch concept car has everything on board that characterises the cockpit of the future: full connectivity thanks to the integration of apps, smartphones, tablets and smart watches, as well as large touchscreens and, last but not least, gesture control, which opens the sunroof at a wave of the hand.”