Stellantis is making huge investments in electric technology, but it’s not forgetting about the piston-powered engines that represent the vast majority of its sales around the world. The group will release several new engines in the coming years, including a more powerful straight-six.
Micky Bly, the senior vice president and head of global propulsion systems at Stellantis, said demand for new cars powered by an internal combustion engine is increasing, so the company is adding production capacity to keep up with it. He added that the group — which consists of 14 carmakers — has also started the process of streamlining its portfolio of engines to avoid overlapping, according to Automotive News.
“When we came together as two families, PSA and FCA, we had a lot of engines. We are rapidly streamlining our three-cylinder, four-cylinder, six-cylinder, and even our eight-cylinder engines. We are aggressively streamlining our diesel portfolio. We already exited the 3.0-liter diesel. We will have a low-displacement diesel and a big diesel that’s coming in the future,” he explained at a conference in Detroit.
The publication added that Stellantis will launch new and improved engines on the American market in the coming years. One is allegedly a 520-horsepower evolution of the Hurricane, a 3.0-liter straight-six fitted with a pair of turbochargers. “We have more power. We just haven’t released it yet,” the executive explained. It’s too early to tell which cars this engine will end up in, but recent spy shots of the next-generation Dodge Charger might hide a major hint. While the images only showed the coupe’s body-in-white, a transmission tunnel is clearly visible.
Dodge unveiled the Charger as a concept powered by an electric drivetrain. It hasn’t announced a straight-six-powered variant, but company boss Tim Kuniskis clearly stated that an internal combustion engine fits in the coupe and an electric car doesn’t need a transmission tunnel.
Coincidence? You tell us.
Moving down the range, the Hurricane engine will drop two cylinders to hatch a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder for smaller, lighter cars. Bly also alluded to a three-cylinder engine based on a unit already sold in Europe, according to Automotive News. He didn’t specify which engine he’s talking about, but the 1.2-liter turbocharged triple found in models built by Peugeot, Citroën, Opel, and DS comes to mind.
As for the venerable Pentastar V6 that has powered a long list of cars since 2010, including the last and current generations of the Wrangler, its time to retire hasn’t come yet. Stellantis described it as a “very good, lower-cost, rock-solid, high-quality stalwart” and added that it has “no plans to replace it.” The engine will instead get updates in the not-too-distant future, and it will gain some degree of electrification.
“ICE is here to stay for a period of time,” Bly clarified.
