The challenge of rising energy demand worldwide and the need to successfully bring in technology and innovation to counter it is seeing many leading industry players take serious initiatives.

In Chennai yesterday, Shell Lubricants and IIT Madras hosted India's first ‘Lubricants Technology Lecture’ which brought key stakeholders of the automotive industry together. The day-long event saw industry experts conduct an in-depth analysis on 'Technological Innovations – Pathway to Improving Fuel Efficiency’, along with understanding the role lubricants can play in addressing the global energy challenge. It also underlined the certainty of massive energy demand India will have in the decades to come due to high economic growth and a growing automotive industry.

Making their presentations, eminent speakers from the automotive industry and also engineering experts emphasised cross-industry co-engineering as the fastest route to optimising fuel efficiency in lubricants for vehicles.

Professor Gordon Murray, renowned designer of Formula One race cars and the McLaren F1 road car as well as the CEO and technical director of Gordon Murray Design (GMD), who has been associated with the lecture series since its inception, also emphased co-engineering. He said, “At GMD, we are developing innovative cars that challenge every aspect of car design concepts, including lubrication. A lubricant is a vital engine component that has more potential than most for improving a vehicle’s fuel economy and cutting its CO2 emissions. That is why we have been working closely with Shell as technical partners since 2010. We share the same drive for fuel efficiency and innovation in an energy challenged world.

Making the keynote address, Dr Selda Gunsel, vice-president,  Shell Global (Commercial Technology), said: “We believe lubricants – alongside new fuel and engine technologies – have a unique and vital role to play in meeting the global energy challenge. Our research shows that fuel economy can be improved by using the most suitable quality lubricant for an engine, and that even higher savings can be achieved when the lubricants provider and the automotive original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, work together to develop bespoke products for a particular vehicle. This involves long-term co-engineering projects within the industry.”

Speaking to Autocar Professional, Nitin Prasad, country head, Shell Lubricants India, said, “The energy challenge is an enormous task ahead as energy requirement globally is doubling. In India it would be even more than that and we need to innovate and develop new technologies to solve this challenge through collaboration.” 

He added that fuel efficiency and emission standards are key issues and OEMs need to understand that they need to work very closely with their lubricant partners to find solutions to these challenges.

Dr Tim Leverton, head of Advanced & Product Engineering at Tata Motors, and Rick Finn, corporate strategy team, Infineum also shared their perspectives on energy challenges. Students and the faculty of IIT Madras also participated in the seminar.