Exclusive: Greaves Cotton working on new, higher horsepower diesel engine platform

Engine manufacturer Greaves Cotton, which was recently in the news for powering the new Multix personal utility vehicle from Eicher Polaris with a single-cylinder, 511cc BS-III diesel engine (10hp), is now transiting into the higher horsepower engine league.

The company is currently at an advanced stage of development of a new, larger diesel engine platform which could herald its entry into the passenger car and light commercial vehicle (LCV) segment from the small commercial vehicle (SCV) and three-wheeler space it currently caters to in the automotive engine market.

As part of its growth strategy, Greaves Cotton is now looking to move upwards in terms of offering its diesel engines from the sub-1-tonne payload capacity SCVs to 1- and 2-tonne payload capacity LCVs.

Autocar Professional has learnt that Greaves Cotton is working on an all-new engine platform that involves developing a three-cylinder, 1.5-litre diesel engine which will be BS-IV emission compliant with potential to meet BS-V emission norms that are expected to be enforced by 2019.

Mohanjit Singh Walia, Chief Operating Officer of the company’s Engine Business Division, told this correspondent that the new engine platform will be modular with further variants evolving; one of them is likely to be a four-cylinder diesel motor. The 1.5-litre diesel engine will develop 105bhp and will be suited for meeting the higher power and torque requirements of both LCVs and passenger cars.

Developmental work on the prototype engine is slated to be completed by April-May 2016. Thereafter, the prototype will be available to vehicle manufacturers for further customisation and optimisation to meet their specific vehicle requirements. The engine will further run through a minimum two-year cycle including testing and validation before it is ready for production. 

Greaves Cotton will be associated with vehicle OEMs (which deploy this engine) right through the modification stage, after which the powerplant will be manufactured at the engine maker’s manufacturing facility.

A new production facility for manufacture of the new engine platform is on the drawing board, with a likely location being Aurangabad where the company’s technology centre is located. A team of 10 designers from this centre are believed to have been involved in the development of the new engine platform.

Currently, Greaves Cotton makes mainly single- and two-cylinder 435cc displacement engines for three-wheelers and SCVs at its plants at Chennai and Aurangabad.