Fiat Engine Tech Impressive - But Would U.S. Buyers Accept the Cost?

Fiat Engine Tech Impressive - But Would U.S. Buyers Accept the Cost?

By Bill Visnic October 30, 2009

In exchange for becoming the operating partner and 20-percent owner of Chrysler Group LLC, Fiat S.p.A. said it would work to incorporate its new efficiency-enhancing powertrain technologies into Chrysler-badged vehicles and other models the two companies may introduce into the U.S. market.

Fiat recently launched one such technology, showing the media the first car powered by an engine using the company's innovative "Multiair" variable-valve timing system.

The technology seems genuinely impressive - it cuts fuel consumption by a solid 10 percent while increasing power and torque by a similar amount - but the car in which the first Multiair 4-cylinder engines are launched, the Alfa Romeo Mito ("me-too") subcompact, are markedly more expensive than most Americans would consider reasonable for such a small car.

The mid-level Mito, with a 133-horsepower Multiair 4-cylinder that most closely matches the power U.S. buyers expect from the 4-cylinder engine in a compact car, costs about £14,645 in the United Kingdom, auto-enthusiast magazine Car reports. In straight exchange-rate conversion, that amounts to about $24,000.

It's unlikely the new Alfa's direct exchange-rate conversion represents what a similar vehicle using a multiair engine - Fiat's own 500 subcompact or a rebadged Chrysler vehicle using a Fiat platform - would sell for in the U.S. But the Alfa Romeo Mito's price in Europe does underscore what is likely to be a vexing problem for all automakers seeking to sell high-tech, high-efficiency small cars to U.S. consumers: profitable pricing is likely to result in MSRPs out of scale with most Americans' expectations for what a subcompact or compact car should cost.

Enthusiasts and analysts have said Fiat's 500, a car that has won the hearts of European consumers, could make a go in the U.S. market. If that (or a similar vehicle) using a Multiair engine were priced even at $18,000, it could leave U.S. customers wondering whether larger and more comfortable vehicles such as a Ford Fusion, rated at 23 mpg in the city and 34 mpg on the highway and starting at slightly more than $19,000, isn't a better proposition.

Tech That Works

The Mulitiar engines do seem impressive, however. Car reports the top-of-the-line Mito Cloverleaf delivers a combined 47 mpg (by European fuel-economy metrics) and accelerates from 0-to-60 mph in 7.5 seconds. Illustrating the Mito Cloverleaf's size in relation to American standards, though, the car weighs just 2,524 pounds, about the same as a Honda Fit subcompact.  

The Mito Cloverleaf's 1.4-liter Multiair engine develops 168 horsepower for an entirely impressive power density of 120 horsepower per liter. The 133-hp Multiair engine in the mid-range Mito and its less-performance-oriented tuning still generates a highly effective 95 horsepower per liter.

The Multiair technology is based on an electrohydraulic actuator between the engine's camshaft and two intake valves for each cylinder that can infinitely vary the intake valves' timing and lift. Doing so eliminates the traditional method of throttling the engine, eliminating pumping losses and improving fuel efficiency by about 10 percent. The Multiair engines also are turbocharged and use direct fuel injection. - Bill Visnic, senior contributing editor

Photos:

1. Alfa Romeo Mito Cloverleaf gets 168 horsepower and 47 Euro mpg from its Multiair 1.4-liter 4-cylinder engine (courtesy Fiat S.p.A.)

2. Detail of the complex Multiair valvetrain. The electrohydraulic bellows acting on the rocker arm for each pair of intake valves imparts infinitely variable valve timing and lift - independently for each cylinder (courtesy Fiat Powertrain Technologies)

Bill Visnic:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter