EXTENDING the ICE age

Future vehicle propulsion is not a single-solution challenge. Top engineers take Automotive Engineering into the next combustion-engine frontier.

Mass electrification is coming. By now, most of the mobility-engineering community accepts that. EVs will, at some point in time, emerge as a ubiquitous propulsion source for light vehicles-and potentially larger ones as well.

But until that future arrives-maybe three decades hence-billions of new internal combustion engines of various types will be produced. Perhaps up to 3 billion more ICEs, depending on whose forecasting you believe. Increasingly they'll be paired with hybrid-electric systems. If even half of those new engines are four-cylinder types, that's 6 billion more pistons and connecting rods that'll need to be cast, forged and machined.