Exclusive: ARAI developing diesel engine platforms for a European OEM

The Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), the research authority of the Indian automotive industry that comes under the aegis of the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, government of India, is currently working on the design and development of multiple diesel engine platforms for a Europe-based OEM.

The research body that is known for carrying a number of independent projects on its test bed is readying these engine platforms ground up for an undisclosed international OEM for off-road applications. ARAI, which is already halfway into this project, will ready the prototypes in another few months from now.

In an exclusive interaction with Autocar Professional recently, Neelkanth V Marathe, senior deputy director, powertrain engineering (PTE), ARAI revealed that “Recently, we have started developing a series of new diesel engines (including three-cylinder, four-cylinder) of certain power range, which I won’t be able to disclose at this moment, for a European OEMs for off-road applications.  This would be another very important project for us where we will be developing completely new engines from scratch. These engines would be capable of meeting higher level of emission norms so that in future the basic mechanical engine design remains unchanged. We have reached halfway under this project, and may be in another few months, the prototypes will be ready.”

It can be recalled that ARAI has also, recently, designed, developed and delivered a two-cylinder diesel engine with displacement of less than one litre for tractor and genset applications to a Chinese company named Huafeng Power Company (also known as Power HF commonly). According to the senior official, ARAI has bagged another project from the same company on the back of the success of its two-cylinder diesel powertrain.

“Yes, we are thankful to our clients who trust us and our capabilities. We did work for a Chinese OEM wherein we had developed a completely new engine for them. Based on the success of that engine, which was implemented commercially in several parts of the world by them (they are producing it), they have given us a project of developing another new engine for them,” he informed. 

ARAI’s active engine development projects also include one three-cylinder diesel powertrain with a displacement of 1.5 litres that was built from scratch. While this powertrain was designed to deliver a peak power output of close to 150 horsepower (112kw), a prototype of this engine (on the engine dynamometer at ARAI) outputs a peak power of close to 100 horsepower (75kw).

Talking about this modular engine design where the peak power output can be tweaked as per the requirements, Marathe said that “This was a three-cylinder, engine downsizing project. The work done was quite satisfactory. We are demonstrating this as Indian engine design technology and those who wish to buy it from us, we will sell it to them with proper design transfer. The engine, which was developed at ARAI ground up, is now ready. It took us 3-4 years to us to design and develop this powertrain.”

The Pune-based ARAI, which was earlier perceived more as a well-established homologation service provider to the automotive OEMs, is now known for aggressively undergoing a transformation to being a full-fledged research and development centre for the automotive industry. The research body is working on a number of regulations including vehicular emissions, safety and security, crash testing, lighting and others. It is also probing the impact of Volkswagen’s international emissions scandal in the context of its cars running on Indian roads.