Here’s how (and where) Horse, Renault’s internal combustion engine division, will sputter
The division of the world according to Renault's industrial geography has begun: Ampere, the division dedicated to electric cars, will preside over Europe, while Horse Powertrain, in which Geely and Aramco have also come on board, will continue to produce internal combustion engines in emerging countries. Starting from Brazil
The stagnation in the sales of electric motors demonstrates only one thing: the days of internal combustion engines are not numbered as the most optimistic people thought. Even within the European Union, currently the only one that has legally imposed their farewell by establishing the terms beyond which their production will be prohibited, doubts and voices of dissent are growing. In the rest of the world, even more so, there is even less talk about ecological transition and this is the reason why Horse Powertrain, the jv between Renault – which will proceed with electric with Ampere – the Chinese giant Geely and Aramco, has started a plan of investments for a first factory in Brazil.
HORSE WANTS TO RUN THE FACTORY DEDICATED TO SENNA
The strategy involves focusing the positioning and presence strategy in emerging countries that will not leave the internal combustion engines too soon at the Curitiba plant that Renault already has in South America. It will open a new production line of aluminum cylinder heads for its 1.0 and 1.3 engines by 2026.
Founded in 1998, the Ayrton Senna complex employs over 2600 people and to date has been organized into two production units to simultaneously churn out passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. In 25 years (so at the close of 2023), the site had produced more than 3.5 million vehicles for the local market and for export. Currently the Renault Kardian comes out of its lines.
Horse intends to invest 26.3 million euros in a new plant where the cylinders will be produced by shell casting, with a forecast of producing 210,000 cylinder heads per year. The increase in production capacity will require spending 6.5 million to strengthen the department that deals with product testing and verification.
ENGINES COMPATIBLE WITH ETHANOL
In short, through Horse, Renault will continue to focus on petrol engines. And not only that. The HR10 and HR13 engines produced in Curitiba are in fact specific for the South American market, where the majority of engines can be powered by both petrol and ethanol.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/horse-powertrain-renault-motori-a-scoppio/ on Sun, 15 Sep 2024 13:26:03 +0000.