DETROIT ? Eco-Motors announced Tuesday that a Chinese automotive supplier, Zhonding, will build a $200 million factory in Eastern China to build 150,000 of the fuel efficient engines a year.
The engine design called OPOC, which stands for opposed piston, opposed cylinder, has half the number of parts of a typical piston engine and could be built for nearly half the cost, Autoline Daily reported. Fuel efficiency is anywhere from 15-40 percent better depending upon the application. When placed in a passenger vehicle, the engine could deliver a 100 MPG five-passenger car aimed at the Chinese market.
?We need to keep a close eye on how this goes because the OPOC engine could be a very disruptive technology, and could turn the engine world on its head,? Autoline Daily reported. ?Long-time industry observers will recognize two of the top officers at Eco-Motors: Don Runkle, formerly of General Motors and Delphi, and John Coletti who ran all the engineering operations at Ford?s SVT 0perations.?
The five-year-old startup is backed by Khosla, Bill Gates and Braemar Energy Ventures. The factory will be the first in the world building opoc at a commercial scale. When it starts production in 2014, the factory will aim to produce 150,000 engines per year. There?s also an adjacent site that could expand production to 400,000 engines per year later.
By partnering with a giant like Zhongding, EcoMotors doesn?t have to raise and spend a lot of money on infrastructure. In return, Zhongding will sell the engines domestically in China ? these particular engines will be powerful ones used for generators, off-road vehicles and commercial vehicles. Chung called the strategy ?cleantech done right.?
The Chinese car market, as well as the engine market, are the largest and fastest growing in the world. And the Chinese government has set very aggressive goals to reduce the country?s air pollution and carbon emissions.
