Micky Bly, senior vice president and head of global propulsion systems at Stellantis, told a crowd at an electrification conference here Wednesday that the company was continuing to invest in — and clean up — the internal combustion engine as it rolls out electric vehicles."When we came together as two families, PSA and FCA, we had a lot of engines. We are rapidly streamlining our three-cylinder, four-cylinder and six-cylinder and even our eight-cylinder engines. We are aggressively streamlining our diesel portfolio. We already exited the 3.0-liter diesel. We will have a low-displacement diesel and a big diesel that's coming in the future."
Stellantis, Bly said, is also on track to launch 75 EVs globally by the end of the decade. "We have to balance this approach. ICE is here to stay for a period of time. We are growing capacity, adding capacity, for South America, the Middle East and Europe and Asia Pacific."
As for the U.S., Bly said Stellantis' strategy will see new engines and improved versions of current gasoline powertrains.
"One of the things that was very clear [in the merger of PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles] was that we had some engines that were not performing well on our C02 road map," he said. "We could fix some of those things with [mild and plug-in hybrids]. The Hemi doesn't have all the attributes we needed. We could go and redo the Hemi, but we realized we needed to downsize the engine and bring up the power."
That happened late last year with the introduction of the 3.0-liter Hurricane twin-turbo inline six-cylinder, which makes more power than the bigger, heavier 6.4-liter Hemi V-8. A high-output version of the Hurricane makes 520 hp, 35 hp more than the Hemi V-8. "We have more power. We just haven't released it yet," said Bly.
The Hurricane will spawn one new engine, a 2.0-liter four-cylinder. Bly said there is also a three-cylinder on the way. It will be based on an existing European engine.
It should be noted Michael Bly was a Manley hire in 2019 from American Axle, but before that he spent 23 years at GM.Bly said that Stellantis plans to keep and improve the Pentastar V-6, even though the Hurricane engine is small enough to replace it.
"The Pentastar is a very good, lower-cost, rock-solid, high-quality stalwart of our collection, and we have no plans to replace it. In fact, shortly, you will hear of an improvement coming, and it will be a bit of an electrification story."
While other automakers have announced plans to go all EV, Stellantis, with 14 brands globally, is not planning to quit gasoline or diesel.
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