With transportation consuming roughly 30% of U.S. energy and generating a comparable share of emissions, General Motors set out to address a persistent gap: medium-duty truck engines have long lagged lighter-duty counterparts in efficiency and weight.
The Low Mass and High Efficiency (LMHE) Medium-Duty Truck Engine, developed with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Ohio State University, Michigan Technological University, Southwest Research Institute, and casting partners including Eck Industries, achieved a 15% weight reduction and 10% fuel efficiency improvement over GM’s baseline V8.
“This is a showcase of how powerful collaborative research and development between industry, university, and national labs can be,” said Qigui Wang, Technical Fellow at GM.
The project used an integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) approach to optimize lightweight alloys and casting processes. Having passed rigorous durability testing, GM is now advancing the engine toward production readiness. The project was funded by the DOE Vehicle Technologies Office.
