Exclusive: Honeywell starts rolling out petrol turbochargers in India

Honeywell Turbo Technologies India (HTT India), the India arm of Honeywell’s transportation systems unit, has just begun locally manufacturing turbochargers for gasoline (petrol) engines at its Pune-based production plant. The plant until now was known for manufacturing only diesel engine-specific turbochargers with applications in passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, off-highway and mining segments within the automotive sector, with passenger vehicles forming the largest chunk.

Autocar Professional learns that HTT India is ready with the required infrastructure and has recently started manufacturing the turbochargers for petrol engines, following its ‘east-for-east’ approach.

Talking about the development, Milind Godbole, managing director, HTT India, said: “We have started manufacturing the turbochargers for gasoline engines at our Pune plant. These, along with the turbochargers for diesel engines, will drive growth for us in the foreseeable future.”

The company foresees healthy market potential for turbocharger applications in 1.0 to 1.2-litre petrol engines and 1.2- to 1.5-litre diesel powertrains in India. Notably, the mentioned engine range powers three key passenger car segments in India – hatchbacks, compact sedans and compact SUVs.

The company, which opened its Pune-based manufacturing plant (Honeywell’s sole production plant for turbochargers in India) in 2005, currently produces nearly one million turbocharger units per year, with 75 percent of the volume exported to European and South Asian markets and the balance 25 percent supplied to OEMs in India. The plant’s annual production capacity can be expanded up to 1.5 million units, depending on the market demand.

With 18 assembly lines, the Pune plant now manufactures turbochargers for engine displacements ranging from 1.2 litres to 8 litres. Godbole added that “HTT India is currently growing at a rate of two-three times of our gross domestic product (GDP) growth.” India’s revised GDP growth for FY2013-14 stood at 4.7 percent.

HTT India is known to have developed the turbocharger for Honda Cars India’s four-cylinder, 1498cc diesel engine, which powers the hugely successful Amaze compact sedan. “We (applications engineering teams based in Pune and Bangalore) worked very closely with the team based in our application engineering centre in Japan with a single focus on Indian driving conditions, right from the design stage. All in all, we took two to three years to develop the turbocharger technology for Honda from scratch, which is a high-speed development by its own standards,” he highlighted.

Honda’s first-ever diesel engine (1.5 litre) for India is a lightweight powertrain (for engines of this category) which uses a dual overhead camshaft (DOHC) design along with 16 inlet and outlet valves. The highly fruitful engine, as claimed by Honda, delivers a fuel efficiency of 25.8kpl and a maximum power output of close to 99bhp.

Interestingly, according to Godbole, while the penetration of turbochargers in India is nearly 50 percent, it is only 20 percent in China currently. The company official estimates that compact sedans and compact SUVs would continue to drive growth (demand for petrol and diesel engine turbochargers) in the passenger car segment.

Further, he has sizeable expectations from the off-highway and mining segments, given the hope that the new government will push for infrastructure projects and the benefits would start percolating down the value chain later this year. With barely five percent penetration in the farm equipment sector, HTT India also sees this as a big potential area for business.

Photograph: Milind Godbole, managing director, Honeywell Turbo Technologies India.