HANOVER, Germany -- Volkswagen Group plans to fit particle filters, used in its diesel cars, in its turbocharged gasoline direct-injection engines starting mid-2017 to help meet future tailpipe emission targets.
Direct-injection engines displaced older gasoline port-injection engines because of superior fuel efficiency. However gasoline direct-injection engines have the disadvantage that there is less time for the gasoline to mix with the air in the combustion chamber. This incomplete mixing leads to a substantially higher output of toxic particulate matter.
Starting in September 2017, all new gasoline-powered vehicles in the EU will have to reduce their particulate matter levels to a tenth of the previous amount under the upcoming Euro 6c regulation.
VW Group CEO Matthias Mueller said the automaker's new TSI and TSFI engines will be successively equipped with a gasoline particulate filter.
Mueller said Volkswagen will start next June with the 1.4-liter TSI engine in the new VW Tiguan compact SUV and the 2.0-liter TFSI engine in the Audi A5 in order to reduce PM emissions by up to 90 percent.
Up to 7 million VW Group vehicles could be equipped with this technology each year by 2022, he told shareholders at the automaker's annual meeting here on June 22.
This means Volkswagen will join Mercedes-Benz brand, which already announced it would gradually roll out filters through its gasoline engine fleet in the future.
Since 2014, Faurecia has been supplying the Mercedes S 500 with gasoline particle filters, which uses a different material as a substrate compared to their diesel particle filters. Last April, Faurecia said it would make the technology available across the industry for all types of vehicles.
