(Tue 21 Oct 08)

Lotus Engineering is celebrating its involvement in Project Hotfire, which has been named as the top academic collaborative project in the automotive sector at the Engineer Technology + Innovation Awards 2008.

Project Hotfire involved Lotus, Continental Powertrain, University College London and Loughborough University, and received funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. It was devoted to studying the effects of direct petrol injection on fuel economy and exhaust emissions. The particular emission of most concern with engines of this type is nitrogen oxide, but Project Hotfire managed to eliminate the need for an expensive NOx trap, and also recorded fuel economy benefits of up to 15%.

The end result of Project Hotfire was a pair of single-cylinder research engines designed and built by Lotus, but the story has moved on. Lotus has now collaborated with Continental Powertrain in the Energy Saving Trust-funded Low CO2 Project, which has created a three-cylinder mild-hybrid engine containing technology developed during Project Hotfire.

Examples of this engine have been fitted to Vauxhall/Opel Astras (one of them pictured above) which have demonstrated improvements in both fuel economy and performance.

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