Volvo commences production of new Engine Family

Volvo Car Group has started the production of a new highly efficient four-cylinder engine family. The development and production of the new engine family will be in-house at Volvo Car Group and will play an important role in the company's strategy for independence. 

Volvo Cars has chosen the four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines and driveline electrification as the strategy for the future. With total control over the development and production of engines and drivelines and by reducing the number of engine variants, the result is increased flexibility and greater ability to influence quality.

"This marks a milestone in Volvo Cars' history. With our new engine family we are focusing on two additional vital properties - driving pleasure and fuel efficiency," says Derek Crabb, Vice President Powertrain Engineering.

The production and development of the new Volvo Engine Architecture (VEA) engines has commenced at the company's manufacturing plant in Skovde. All the engine versions are built on the same line, which runs through the new part of the plant and makes for very efficient production. "One of the biggest challenges was the remodelling of the line for cylinder block processing. 30 machining cells were replaced or converted at a cost of about half a billion kronor," says Oskar Falk, Vice President Global Engine Production.

A Swedish team of engineers has developed the new VEA engines. The company claims that the new, smaller engines are optimized and deliver high performance than the six-cylinder units, while offering lower fuel consumption than the current generation of four-cylinder units.

"During the development of VEA the starting point was our customers and what we wanted to offer them in regard to good fuel economy, low environmental impact and immense driving pleasure at an attractive price. At the same time, however, it's also about the fact that Volvo Cars gets a sound basis for developing future-generation technologies featuring fuel economy of absolute world class," says Derek Crabb.

The new four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines with driveline electrification will replace the eight engine architecture on three different platforms. The new engines will be launched between 2013 and 2015. Almost 20,000 engines will be manufactured this year, and the production capacity will increase to 2,000 units a week by the end of this year. The first variants will be fitted to the Volvo S60, V60, XC60, V70, XC70 and S80 in autumn 2013.