Petrol & diesel to merge?

Mercedes plans common technology within a decade

By PH Staff / Wednesday, 18 May 2005 / Loading comments

An end to pollution?

Mercedes is planning to revolutionise the internal combustion cycle by combining both diesel and petrol technologies into a single engine type. The company reckoned that it could achieve this within the decade, according to a report in this week's Autocar.

The company said that the components and technologies used in both types of engine are growing closer: common rail fuel injection and turbocharging are examples. The new types of engine will have no spark plugs and run on synthetic fuels; Mercedes has dubbed it the Diesotto, after Rudolph Diesel and Nikolaus Otto, who invented the four-stroke petrol engine.

The advantages from a constructor's point of view are that it will save duplicating components and help lower emissions, both costly items in an engine-builder's ledger.