The Proton E01 engine, formerly known as the Petronas E01 engine, is an upcoming automobile

gasoline engine A petrol engine (gasoline engine in American English) is an internal combustion engine designed to run on petrol (gasoline). Petrol engines can often be adapted to also run on fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas and ethanol blends (such as '' ...

by the

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

n carmaker, Proton. Originally developed by the Malaysian oil company

Petronas Petroliam Nasional Berhad (National Petroleum Limited), commonly known as Petronas, is a Malaysian petroleum, oil and natural gas, gas company. Established in 1974 and wholly owned by the Government of Malaysia, the corporation is vested w ...

in 1997, the engine patents were acquired by Proton in 2012. The engine is currently being reworked in order to meet the upcoming Euro 6C, as the original engine was designed for Euro 2 standard. The E01 engine will become one of the upcoming seven engines being developed by Proton as successors of the

CamPro engine The Proton CamPro engine is the first flagship automotive engine developed together with Lotus by the Malaysian automobile manufacturer, Proton. The name ''CamPro'' is short for ''Cam Profiling''. This engine powers the Proton Gen-2, Proton Sa ...

family, which are expected to be ready in 2017.

Technical specifications

The E01 engine is a 2-litre

DOHC An overhead camshaft (OHC) engine is a piston engine where the camshaft is located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier overhead valve engines (OHV), where the camshaft is located below the combustion ch ...

16-valve engine featuring

gasoline direct injection Gasoline direct injection (GDI), also known as petrol direct injection (PDI), is a mixture formation system for internal combustion engines that run on gasoline (petrol), where fuel is injected into the combustion chamber. This is distinct ...

, aluminum block and continuous

variable valve timing In internal combustion engines, variable valve timing (VVT) is the process of altering the timing of a valve lift event, and is often used to improve performance, fuel economy or emissions. It is increasingly being used in combination with varia ...

system. The engine is capable to produce of power at 7,300 rpm and of

torque In physics and mechanics, torque is the rotational equivalent of linear force. It is also referred to as the moment of force (also abbreviated to moment). It represents the capability of a force to produce change in the rotational motion of t ...

at 5,300 rpm. The E01 engine can be installed 15 degrees tilting forward or backward of the engine compartment. Besides the initial 2-litre engine, the E01 engine can also be configured to spawn 1.8-litre and 2.2-litre variants. When the E01 engine was developed by Petronas, the engine was designed to meet the Euro 2 emission standard. As a result, Proton is currently reworking the engine, in addition to the development of an all-new family of six engines, to meet the upcoming Euro 6C standard.

History

The E01 engine was originally developed by

Sauber Petronas Engineering Sauber Petronas Engineering AG (SPE) was a company owned jointly by the Swiss racing car manufacturer Sauber (60%) and the Malaysian oil company Petronas (40%). It was founded in 1996 for the purpose of supplying engines to the Sauber Formula On ...

, a 60:40 joint-venture between Petronas and

Sauber Sauber Motorsport AG is a Swiss motorsport engineering company. It was founded in 1970 (as PP Sauber AG) by Peter Sauber, who progressed through hillclimbing and the World Sportscar Championship to reach Formula One in . After operating it ...

. It was the first commercial automotive engine in Malaysia. The development of the engine started in March 1997, with the engine start-up ceremony being held on 20 February 1998. The engine was intended to be supplied to Proton; however, Proton had ultimately opted for their self-designed

s instead to be used in their upcoming models. Only 6 known cars were fitted with the Petronas E01 engine - 2 Series 1

Lotus Elise The Lotus Elise is a two-seat, rear-wheel drive, mid-engined roadster conceived in early 1994 and released in September 1996 by the British manufacturer Lotus Cars. The Elise has a fibreglass body shell atop its bonded extruded aluminium chass ...

, a Proton Perdana, a Proton Putra, a

Proton Satria The Proton Satria is a hatchback automobile produced by Malaysian manufacturer Proton from 1994 to 2005 in the first generation model and from 2006 to 2015 in the Satria Replacement Model (SRM), known as the Proton Satria Neo. The name ''Satria' ...

GTi and a

Proton Waja The Proton Waja is a saloon car manufactured by Malaysian automotive company, Proton, first released in May 2000. The name ''Waja'', which means ''(strong as) steel'' in Malay has both physical and abstract connotations. In the United Kingdo ...

. After the first failed attempt to sell the engine patents to Proton, Petronas was looking for other carmakers who were willing to buy the engine patents. In 2005, a Chinese carmaker

Nanjing Automobile Nanjing Automobile is a state-owned enterprise with a history that dates from 1947,

was interested to buy the engine patents. A letter of intent was signed on 2 September 2005. Nanjing Automobile also had set up a plan to mass-produce the E01 engine; however, the plan did not materialize at all. It was not until 2006 that Proton intended to take over the patents of the E01 engine. A memorandum of intention was signed by both parties on 29 January 2006. However, the patent purchase was only finalized in 2012, as Petronas decided to exit from all engine development activities since 2010. The engine patent purchase provided Proton with an immediate ownership of a family of powertrains consisting 2.0-litre and 2.2-litre engines in normally-aspirated and

turbocharged In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger (often called a turbo) is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to pro ...

variants. Besides, the ownership of the E01 engine patents also enabled Proton to derive the

technology which would also be applied to their own Proton GDi engine family. With the patents of the E01 engine being acquired from Petronas, the E01 engine becomes one of the two upcoming engine families to succeed the CamPro engine which was in service since 2004 via the

Proton Gen-2 A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ...

. Both engine families are expected to be debuted by the end of 2017.

Technical specifications

History

References

See also