Punch Group – Duramax V8 diesel engine is taught manners, runs on hydrogen to save the earth.
[Auto Evolution] The Punch Group bought GM’s Turin engineering complex two years ago, along with a license to manufacture and sell the 6.6-liter Duramax V8 diesel in any market outside the U.S. Now, they want to convert the big engine to run on hydrogen. A commercial version is planned for 2024.Punch Group is known as a supplier for BMW and ZF but its ambitions are way higher, especially as they bought GM’s engine facility in Italy two years ago. They want to monetize on electric vehicles being less suitable for heavy-duty operations by converting a well-proven diesel engine to run on hydrogen.
The converted engine will be exempted from their contract terms to only sell outside the U.S., so expect heavy-duty machinery and vehicles powered by hydrogen to appear in the U.S. as soon as 2024.
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In an interview with Automotive News, Punch Group’s CEO Guido Dumarey details their plans to offer several hydrogen-powered engines based on their research done on the Duramax engine. The smaller offering will start at 110 horsepower, but the big Duramax engine will offer up to 544 horsepower.
Hydrogen may not have a future in passenger cars, due to the size of the hydrogen tanks, but is a good solution for commercial vehicles and trucks hauling goods on the interstate.
Besides working on the Duramax hydrogen-powered engine, Punch Group will develop a 500 cc combustion chamber that will become the base for many displacements, starting from a 2.0-liter L4 engine and going up to a 3.0-liter V6. The company targets diesel engines since these are manufactured to be more enduring than their gasoline counterparts. Thanks for staying up to date with Hydrogen Central.
Punch Group is not the only one trying to convert combustion engines to run on hydrogen. The most prominent company is Toyota, which demonstrated hydrogen-powered combustion engines cars in Japanese motorsport. Toyota also wants to bring hybrid cars with combustion engines fueled with hydrogen instead of gasoline.
Although the hydrogen seems promising, having zero CO2 emissions, burning any fuel will still produce deadly NOx since the air is 78 percent nitrogen. Besides that, producing hydrogen is costly and polluting at the moment, and the infrastructure needed to fill the hydrogen tanks is non-existent outside of California (in the U.S.) and parts of Europe.
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Duramax V8 Diesel Engine Is Taught Manners, Runs on Hydrogen To Save the Earth, January 21, 2022
