VW's new EA888
modular engine family features flexible architecture. It is designed for
improved efficiency and emissions performance.
When Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto pushed the big red button starting production at Volkswagen's new $500 million engine plant in Silao last month, he launched the latest phase of VW Group's strategy to pass Toyota as the world's biggest automaker.
The new plant, VW’s 100th manufacturing
facility worldwide, is part of the company's plan to invest $5 billion
in the North American auto market during the next few years. It's key
to placing production capabilities close to where VW intends to sell
more vehicles, VW Chairman Martin Winterkorn said during the opening
ceremony.
“Silao is thus also a strong symbol of
our uninterrupted growth trajectory and the Group’s continuing
internationalization,” he told the large assembled audience. Global
distribution of manufacturing assets also lets the automaker avoid
currency exchange risks.
Operating on a three-shift schedule, the
new Silao factory will have capacity to build 330,000 engines per
year—1.8- and 2.0-L units from VW's third-generation EA288 family—once
it fully ramps up to line speed. The facility brings 700 relatively
low-wage but sorely needed jobs for the region.
VW said it is also considering building
its latest four-cylinder diesel engines, also part of the EA288 family,
in the huge Silao complex, but a decision has not been finalized. The
gasoline and diesel EA888 engines share more than 50% of their parts.
LEED Gold rating
Located amid the parched and job-thirsty
Mexican Altiplano, the new plant appears almost as austere as the nearby
rocky hillsides. But inside the white walls of the cavernous
factory stretch long lines of the most modern machining cells that
German industry has to offer for casting and forging cylinder blocks,
heads, crankshafts, connecting rods, as well as assembling and testing
the finished product.
And despite its looming size, the huge “inland-port” facility has been built to the LEED Gold Standard of the U.S. Green Building Council, said Manuel Andrade, assembly line supervisor at Silao. “We’re working toward Platinum now,” he told AEI during a plant tour.
The facility is replete
with sustainability measures including energy-efficient light fixtures
throughout that are augmented in daytime with natural light that streams
through rooftop skylights which diffuse incoming sunlight while
blocking out its heat.
The facility also incorporates an
integrated water management system that catches rainwater in nearby
ponds for bathroom use, then filters it through adjacent marshes of
buffalo grass as well as an associated reforestation project.
Launching the Gen3 Triple Eights
The new Silao factory will build
improved-performance turbocharged 1.8- and 2.0-L TSI gasoline engines
slated for future U.S.-spec Jettas, Beetles, and perhaps Passats, said
Michael Tille, Project Manager at VW of Mexico Engineering. The 1.8 TSI
replaces VW's 2.5-L inline-five-cylinder unit later this year.
VW’s EA288 Gen3, or third-generation
EA888 (Triple-Eight), is one of three new engine families (including the
EA211 and EA288 MDB) created primarily to achieve lower CO2 emissions. The flexible factory could manufacture the EA211 and EA288 MDB engines as well.
The Triple-Eights were engineered to
share 90% of their components, Tille said. They will be shipped by
rail or truck to the company’s long-running Puerta car plant 300 mi (483
km) away, as well as to VW’s Chattanooga, TN, assembly plant 1700 mi
(2736 km) to the north.
In the past, VW has imported most of the
engines used in its North American built models. The first-generation
variant of the Triple Eight powers American versions of the Jetta GLI
and Golf GTI. The new 1.8-L TSI has been in use in the Asian and
European markets since spring 2012.
1.8-L Triple-Eight
The 1.8-L TSI is rated at 168 hp (125 kW)
and 184 lb·ft (250 N·m), each a moderate improvement over the previous
five-cylinder (170/177), but the new engine will feature improved fuel
efficiency and exhaust emissions, Tille indicated. It will be matched
with a 5-speed manual or 6-speed automatic transmission.
Of particular interest to VW performance
enthusiasts is the 1.8 TSI engine in the “Passat Performance
Concept” displayed at last month's North American International Auto Show.
The show car engine produces 250 hp (184 kW), providing ready evidence
of the base engine’s potential for tuning for high output.
Tille said that the new
modular-design engine is lighter than previous versions, generates less
internal friction, and features an integrated exhaust manifold that
keeps the coolant in the head to more rapidly warm up both the engine
and passenger cabin. The liquid-cooled manifold reportedly can reduce
exhaust gas temperatures by as much as 160ºC (320ºF) before the gases
enter the turbocharger. The engine uses Lanchester-type balance shafts
to provide smooth, vibration-free running, he said.
The minimum wall thickness in the 72-lb
(33 kg) cast-iron block is 3 mm (0.1 in) in some areas, which saves 2.4
kg (5.3 lb), Tille said, claiming that competitors’ minimum iron-block
wall thickness is nearly double that figure. The VW project manager
cited advanced casting methods that ensure good flow of the molten iron
into the molds, “resulting in zero voids, inclusions, and no
segregation.”
Tille also pointed out a lightweight
bracket for auxiliaries that cuts almost a half kilo and other
lightweighting components such as a plastic lower oil pan, a crankshaft
with four counterweights, and aluminum screws.
2.0-L Triple Eight
The Silao plant will also produce 2.0-L
turbocharged four-cylinder gasoline engines for the Jetta GLI and Beetle
Turbo. Although claimed power (210 hp/155 kW) and torque will remain
the same as the current engine, fuel economy will improve substantially,
he reported.
Other VW models that use the 2.0-L
turbo engine are built in the Győr, Hungary, facility. (Factories in
Dalian and Shanghai in China produce for eastern VW markets.) Several
versions of this iron-block four exist, in both transverse and
longitudinal orientations, but they are all similar.
