This article was taken from the March issue of Wired UK magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
When, in March 2008, the Fiat 500 was awarded European Car of the Year at the Geneva Motor Show, the carmaker's CEO, Sergio Marchionne, announced triumphantly: "We are now the Apple of carmakers -- the new 500 is our iPod."
CEOs like to make bold claims but this time the comparison was valid: the 500 was a design classic; behind their understated exteriors, both products featured groundbreaking technology; and, just as the iPod had saved Apple, Fiat's MultiJet engine, under the bonnet of the 500's 1.3-litre diesel model, had arguably rescued the carmaker fromextinction.
The MultiJet is the outcome of more than 30 years' work at the company's research hub, the Centro Ricerche Fiat (CRF), in Orbassano, on the outskirts of Turin. Since CRF was founded in 1978, its engineers have been developing engines that are typically Fiat: low-cost, compact and economical. But the MultiJet is more than just another iteration in engine design. The technology CRF has developed, it believes, now holds out the prospect of an internal-combustion engine with virtually zero emissions.
Fiat's latest incarnation dates back to 2004 when Sergio Marchionne, the 52-year-old Italian/Canadian CEO of French industrial conglomerate SGS, was hired to run a business that had run up debts of €8 billion. The company had a reputation for making cars that would spend as much time undergoing repair as on the road and it was stuck in an unfavourable deal with General Motors (GM).
Marchionne extracted Fiat from the GM deal (netting $2 billion along the way) and rebooted management by cutting much of the company's stodgy layers of bureaucrats and promoting younger people. And, with the launch of the Grande Punto in 2005 and the Bravo in 2007, he saw the company return to profit.
But although both cars were well received, it was Fiat's engine technologies that turned out to be its real sweet spot. Last April Marchionne brokered a deal in which Fiat would take a 35 per cent stake in troubled US carmaker Chrysler, thereby gaining a crucial foothold in the American market. Under the deal, Chrysler -- facing rising fuel prices and increasing environmental awareness in the US -- would gain access to Fiat's low-emission engines, in particular to its MultiAir valve-control technology. "Fiat is prepared to transfer its cuttingedge technology to Chrysler and has committed to build new fuel-efficient cars and engines right here in the US," Barack Obama announced after news of the deal broke. Fiat had shifted fromdebtor to saviour in one low-emissions move.
One of Marchionne's first actions when he took over Fiat was to pay a visit to Orbassano. There, one of the company's senior technicians, Rinaldo Rinolfi, presented him with a memo whose bland title, "Strategic plan for motors for the next ten years", belied its prophetic nature. By 2010, the paper proposed, Fiat would have three breakthrough technologies ready for market: the MultiJet II diesel and the MultiAir petrol engines and, to work with them, a Dual Dry Clutch Transmission, which would deliver the smoothness of automatic transmission with the economy of manual. Rinolfi's strategy, developed alongside fellow physicist Lucio Bernard, who had joined the company in 1978, was based on a radical assumption: it would be better to improve the diesel and petrol engines that already existed than to develop cars powered by either biofuels or electricity.
Marchionne agreed and in 2005 he brought all of Fiat's powertrain research under one roof. The result was FPT Powertrain, which set Fiat on a period of research that would lead to bold, environment-focused innovations. "In years when the automotive industry was craving for more -- more power, more size, more displacement -- we alone foresaw that times were about to change," says Alfredo Altavilla, FPT Powertrain's CEO.
MultiJet builds on a diesel technology called common rail, first developed for automotive use in the 60s by Swiss automotive engineers in Zurich and significantly improved by Fiat technicians in the decades that followed. It works on the principle that the efficiency of both diesel and petrol engines relies significantly on how much -- and exactly when -- fuel is injected into a cylinder during each stroke. Expressed simply, too much, too early and fuel is wasted; too late and the engine loses power.
In early diesel engines the timing and pressure of the fuel intake varied according to the speed of the engine, making it hard to manage. Common rail addressed this by maintaining the fuel at a constant pressure and using electromechanical valves to inject it into the cylinder in the right quantities and at the right moment.
Depending on engine speed and external conditions, fuel could be injected in small bursts up to five times in the cycle. The result: lower fuel consumption (and consequently less CO2 emitted into the atmosphere) and greater power.
The amalgamation of Fiat's powertrain-research arms suited the company's preference for developing small, efficient engines, but it was also partly prompted by the threat of stricter EU emissions regulations, the so-called Euro 5 and Euro 6, scheduled for introduction in 2009 and 2014 respectively. And, with these in mind, it led directly to the two technologies that so excited Barack Obama: the MultiJet II, in which fuel injections were increased to up to eight times per cycle, and the MultiAir, which does for petrol cars what the MultiJet has done for diesel.
In fact, this is a handy second chance for Fiat. Despite the promise of early MultiJet technology, the company almost killed the golden goose when, in 1994, it signed over its common-rail patents to German manufacturer Robert Bosch. The official reason was that only Bosch had the industrial experience needed to bring common rail to market. In fact, Fiat's dire financial situation meant it couldn't afford to develop the technology on its own.
This time, Fiat will guard its technological advantage more jealously. Although the MultiAir is adaptable to all petrol engines, Fiat will not license it to other manufacturers for at least four years. "The MultiAir technology represents a powerful competitive advantage," Altavilla says.
And Fiat will be driving that advantage home. Planned for release in the fourth quarter of this year, its latest offspring is a two cylinder petrol engine that delivers the horsepower of four.
Combining MultiAir with turbo-charging, the engine, developed by the Powertrain team under Damiano Micelli and Giovanni Mastrangelo, will be even greener, thanks to its reduced size and ability to use low-carbon fuels such as natural gas. The result, it claims: an almost-zero-emission engine.
And, while Fiat continues to innovate, Marchionne continues to look towards a non-automotive company for inspiration. "I grew up in North America, and I remember when Apple started," he reflected in 2007, as signs of Fiat's turn around were emerging. "How much care [Steve] Jobs takes in nurturing their place in the market is just phenomenal. We need to learn that."
Fiat's great green hopes
DDCT
What is it? A dual-clutch mechanical gearbox that gives as smooth a gear change as an automatic but with greater efficiency. Entering production in June as the Fiat C635 clutch, the system promises a four per cent reduction in fuel consumption compared to traditional manual gearboxes and a ten percent reduction compared with automatics.
Benefits: Smooth drive; lower fuel consumption
MultiJet II
What is it? A high-pressure fuel-injection system that has just gone into production on the Punto Evo's Euro 5-compliant 1.3-litre engine.
Injection pressure is no longer affected by engine speed or the amount of fuel injected into the combustion chamber.
Benefits: Greater control of diesel combustion, with improvements in noise, fuel consumption and emissions; up to eight fuel injections per cycle; conforms to Euro 6 criteria; improved driveability
MultiAir
What is it? An electro-hydraulic valve-control system which reduces fuel consumption by drawing air directly through the engine's intake valves, bypassing the throttle. The system also controls the combustion process to reduce emissions.
Benefits: Easily applicable to petrol engines with potential for diesel use; ten per cent boost in horsepower; 15 per cent improvement in torque at low speeds; ten per cent reduction in CO2 emissions due to greater efficiency
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
