The demise of Holden's Family II engine range will not affect local production of the company's Alloytec V6, says Holden boss Mark Reuss. Indeed, the company will seek to bolster its engine operation's fortunes via high-tech versions of its six-cylinder engine range.
Speaking at yesterday's announcement of the cessation of four-cylinder production at Holden Engine Company's (HEC) Port Melbourne works (more here), the Aussie carmaker's Chairman and MD was adamant the future of the High Feature V6 (HFV6) was secure. In fact, he said the local division's aim was to increase the modular V6 engine's reach across the GM world.
"I want to make it clear up front today's [Friday, June 6] announcement only relates to the ending of production of Family II... and not our more advanced global V6 engine produced at the adjacent plant. Holden engine operations here at Fishermans Bend will go on continuing to develop the business opportunities around our global V6 engine facility," Reuss told the assembled media.
"Our V6 engine is a product we know has huge technological development potential It's the highest technology engine produced in GM, and Australia is our [General Motors'] most flexible V6 engine plant.
"That's why, having initially invested $400m, we have recently spent a further $40m on increasing capacity and preparing for the new technologies of the very near future," Reuss said.
Last year Holden built 132,000 HFV6 engines of which around 40 per cent were exported. A number of variants of the engine are currently produced aside from the two 3.6-litre versions of the V6 used across the VE/WM ranges. These include a 2.8-litre turbocharged unit in Saab models, as well as 3.2-litre DOHC naturally-aspirated versions used by Alfa Romeo and GM's European arm Opel (for a snapshot of vehicles and specs see here).
Says Reuss, Port Melbourne-built HFV6 engines are already featured in cars built in China, Thailand, South Korea, South Africa, Austria and Germany... But there are more markets and versions in plan.
"We are looking at ways to leverage our investment in additional capacity. As a first step we are preparing to introduce a range of fuel saving and alternative fuel technologies into the [vehicle] products that we build. V6 engines capable of running on either ethanol or dedicated LPG will be the first additions to our current line-up with more to follow," Reuss revealed.
"GM Holden intends to play a leading role in promoting the alternative fuels and technologies that will play an increasingly important role in all of our futures as we look to reduce our reliance on foreign oil.
"The journey has begun with infusing our local V6 with everything we've [GM's] got from a technology standpoint," he said.
Though worldwide trends to smaller capacity engines are manifest, Reuss and fellow exec, Holden's Executive Director manufacturing Rod Keane, both rejected suggestions that finding wider markets for the relatively large capacity Aussie-built V6 would be difficult.
"I would question [this writer's assertion] that the sentiment towards V6 engines worldwide is not good," said Reuss.
"I would say the sentiment for large-displacement, non-fuel-efficient engines of whatever cylinders [count] is probably negative in some cases. But [for example] there's a lot of people who buy our V8s here in Australia that love them and things like Active Fuel Management [Ed: cylinder cut-off]... make a V8 engine perform like a four cylinder [in terms of fuel usage].
"We've got lots of technologies here. I think it's dangerous to make huge generalisations on anything other than the technology and fuel efficiency that you'll get, whatever powertrain you put into a car and the cost of ownership and the fuel economy that goes with that. That's what we've got to focus on," Reuss opined.
According to Reuss, given the volatility of the fuel market, the current focus on diesel engines was not the "silver bullet" for local consumers. He said alternative fuels such as LPG and ethanol were "much more compelling" in the Australian 'landscape'.
As noted above, it will be these technologies that arrive first. And while the Holden boss did not rule out a hybrid (a timeline for which was suggested by GM Asia Pacific boss, Nick Reilly just over two weeks ago -- here), he dismissed its importance in the Port Melbourne engine facility's near-term future.
In support of Reuss, Keane contends the flexibility of the HFV6's design and the technologies available to Holden will win out over capacity-related prejudices.
"Today we are making small six-cylinder turbocharged engines for overseas customers; we're making direct-injection [V6] engines for overseas customers; we're making ethanol fuel-based [V6] engines... So we already have an array of technology in our suite today," he said
"We look at our business from a global basis," Keane said. "This year there'll be 75 million vehicles built around the world, so certainly we see there is plenty of opportunity for the sorts of engines that we make today and into the future."
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