“The technology is very actively being worked on,” Bob Lee, Chrysler’s vice president for engine and electrified propulsion systems, said yesterday in an interview in Detroit, according to Bloomberg.
Fiat, which as of this week owns 30 percent of the American carmaker and plans to increase the figure to 51 percent by the end of the year, will bring its technologies to the US. Sergio Marchionne, chief executive officer of both Chrysler and Fiat, has stated in the past that natural-gas engines are an attractive way to cut emissions because they’re cheaper than competing technologies.
“It’s a good way for some diversity in the market in terms of fuel use,” Lee said at the SAE 2011 World Congress, an automotive engineering convention in Detroit.
Chrysler is looking at the possibility of adding compressed natural gas-powered engines to its Ram brand, as Fred Diaz, head of the truck unit, said in February. It should be interesting to see how technologies that are being used on small capacity engines in Europe make their way into bigger American trucks.
“I’m eager and very interested to see what we can do with CNG in our truck applications,” Diaz said.
Honda Motor Co. is the only automaker selling cars with compressed natural gas engines to retail customers in the market at the moment, while General Motors began selling vehicles with natural-gas engines to the US fleet buyers last year.
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