Eaton India is a big firm with a wide range of products and solutions, headquartered in Pune. The Ireland company is a well known supercharger maker, which is now targeting lower capacity engines. They are specifically developing a supercharger for the Indian market that will enable carmakers to develop small capacity engines without compromising on power and fuel efficiency. This new supercharger is targeted at engines with a capacity between 1.1-litre to 1.5-litre. Eaton claims that this supercharger will provide higher power figures, improved torque curves and better fuel efficiency.
At present, Eaton India is conducting trials of the supercharger with a few OEM cars. The new supercharger is also being planned to be fitted in CNG powered cars along with petrol and diesel powered vehicles. The company believes that the supercharger will be a logical solution to the drop in power seen in CNG fuelled cars. Eaton is likely to collaborate with some manufacturers in India to develop next generation vehicles. Heavy amount of engineering effort is required to build a mass market supercharger.
It will be a difficult task for the manufacturers to keep the costs competitive by adding a supercharger. A supercharged engine involves additional costs but Eaton believes that they require smaller engines and compared to non-supercharged engines, this one will save on material costs. Eaton has already demonstrated the benefits of a supercharger on the export version of the Nissan Micra that develops 97 PS against the standard 75 PS and 150 Nm of torque against 110 Nm from the same 1.2-litre, 3-cylinder petrol engine. However that supercharger isn’t manufactured in India but Eaton plans to manufacture it at its Nashik or Ahmednagar facilities.
Source – Overdrive India
