The Chrysler group will add the more economical version of its Hemi V-8 engine to more vehicles in the 2006 model year, says Chrysler COO Tom LaSorda.

The Hemi engine's cylinder deactivation system, which Chrysler calls a multidisplacement system, or MDS, will be added to the Dodge Durango and Ram and the Jeep Commander.

The engine alternates between four and eight cylinders. Four of the cylinders shut down when less power is needed.

The average gain in fuel economy is 10 percent, the company says.

In some driving conditions the increase is as high as 20 percent, Chrysler says.

Chrysler now offers a 5.7-liter Hemi V-8 in seven models. The Hemi MDS is available in four vehicles: the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Dodge Magnum and Charger, and the Chrysler 300.

In the 2006 model year, all seven models equipped with the 5.7-liter Hemi will use the cylinder deactivation system.

"We think this is going to be big for the marketplace," LaSorda says. "You do not know when it goes from eight cylinders to four cylinders."

The additional MDS applications were in the company's product plan and were not triggered by rising gasoline prices, LaSorda says.

Changes in the engine mounts, exhaust system and engine calibration were required to meet the towing and cargo capacities of the Durango, Ram and Commander, says Cole Quinnell, Chrysler group spokesman.

"The tricky part was deciding when to let it go into four-cylinder mode so you don't feel it when you have extra weight in the vehicle or are towing," Quinnell says.

"The customer should never feel it go from one mode to the other," he says.

The fuel-economy gains in the three trucks will be announced in June after EPA certification, he says.

The system deactivates the valve lifters. This keeps the valves in four cylinders closed, and there is no combustion. Also, energy is not lost when air is pumped through the cylinders, Chrysler says.

The system makes its transition in 40 milliseconds, the company says.

Chrysler Group has introduced a novel way to pay homage to its famous Hemi engine, which represents a staggering 44% of all Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge sales. 'What Can You Hemi?' is a competition aimed at inspiring amateur inventors to create new, if a little pointless, uses for this legendary engine, first made popular in 1951. The individual deemed to best represent this blend of
creativity with functionality will win themselves a Hemi powered Chrysler, Jeep or Dodge of their choice.


If a free car was not inspiration enough, Chrysler has built a Hemi-powered hot dog grill to promote the competition. The 5.7 litre V8 is attached to an electric motor which powers the heating elements to cook 240 hot dogs in three minutes. Production figures to make a roadside greasy spoon blush.

The current Hemi has been in use since 2002 and boasts 340bhp and 390 lb ft of torque. Marcus Braun decided to harness that power with a three-wheeled child's tricycle, and his Hemi-trike was selected from 360 proposals to be one of the five finalists.


Another sketch making the top five is the Hemi-go-round devised by Jonathan Brzon. An attraction that would allow infants to experience fighter pilot levels of G-force, with the classic wooden horses replaced by Hemi trucks and cars and a V8 burble sweet enough to substitute the carousel music.


Visit www.whatcanyouhemi.com or follow the gallery link to see all five finalists, we'll bring you news of the winner when it is announced at the end of the month.

BEIJING -- The Chrysler group is looking at hiring China's Chery Automobile Co. to assemble a small car for sale in international markets, say suppliers and other sources in China.

Chrysler would sell the car under the Dodge or Chrysler brand, the sources say. One well-placed source says the Chrysler group would not sell the Chery-produced car in the United States. The sources did not indicate whether DaimlerChrysler planned to sell the car in Europe.

Chery President Yin Tongyao planned to visit Chrysler executives in Detroit on Friday, May 5, to discuss the deal, two supplier sources say. A Chrysler spokesman declined to confirm Yin's visit.

In an interview with Automotive News on Tuesday, May 2, Eric Ridenour, COO of the Chrysler group, declined to say whether the company was talking with Chery about assembling a small car.

Ridenour did confirm, however, that Chrysler is talking with as many as three automakers about assembling a small car for sale in the United States. Chrysler CEO Tom LaSorda said in March that Volkswagen AG is one of the candidates, and automakers based in Asia and Europe are being considered.

To keep costs down, LaSorda said, he is looking for an automaker with an existing platform.

At the Geneva auto show in March, Dodge showed a small concept car called the Hornet, which could be sold in North America, Europe and other markets. The Hornet is smaller than the 2007 Dodge Caliber, the brand's smallest vehicle.

It's unclear whether the Chery project is related to the U.S. small car.

In April 2005, Ruediger Grube, the DaimlerChrysler board member in charge of China, said at the Shanghai auto show that DaimlerChrysler was studying plans to build a car smaller than the Dodge Neon in China for export to North America.

But after the Grube interview, Chrysler officials vehemently denied they were planning to import a car from China for sale in the United States.

DaimlerChrysler has long assembled SUVs in China through a joint venture with Beijing Automotive Industry Corp. The venture, now known as Beijing Benz-DaimlerChrysler Automotive Co. Ltd., also recently began assembling the Mercedes E-class sedan. But Beijing Benz lacks experience with small cars, Chery's specialty.

Chery is also gearing up to produce cars to sell in the United States under its own brand name starting in 2007. Entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin says he has a deal with Chery to distribute the cars in the United States.

Chery is a small but growing automaker with generous political and financial support from Chinese government officials. It sold 189,158 vehicles in 2005 and 86,567 in 2004.

Automakers can cut costs by assembling a small car in China. Components sourced in China can be up to 30 percent cheaper than those sourced in the United States. Labor costs also are much lower in China.

Mary Connelly contributed to this report

DETROIT -- The Chrysler group will decide this year whether to launch a major engine program to replace its existing family of V-6 engines.

In an interview Friday, June 16, Chrysler group CEO Tom LaSorda said a decision will come before the end of the year. He declined to elaborate.

LaSorda said the program would replace "at least some" of the company's V-6 engines. A UAW source said the engine would be used for the Chrysler 300, Dodge Magnum and Dodge Charger, which are expected to be restyled and re-engineered around the 2009 model year.

Chrysler has told local union officials that they must accept work rule changes to be considered for the engine project.

"In the event it does get approved, we want them (the unionized work force) to understand how competitive our plants will be and get the agreement from the work force," LaSorda said.

UAW sources say Chrysler is considering three plants for the new V-6. They are Trenton Engine in Trenton, Mich.; Toledo Machine in Perrysburg, Ohio; and Kenosha (Wis.) Engine.

UAW-represented workers at Trenton Engine last month approved major changes in work rules for a shot at an $800 million investment in the new engine plant. Those changes include a shift to four, 10-hour work days, limited overtime and just two job classifications.

Paul Lambrecht, a grinder at Toledo Machine and councilman in the nearby community of Oregon, Ohio, said he doubts Chrysler would need three plants for the engines.

He said Chrysler has set up a competition for the work rule changes between the three plants "to shop the engine to the easiest labor market to control."

Toledo Machine, unlike Trenton and Kenosha, doesn't make engines. It produces transmissions and steering columns.

The new family of V-6 engines will be engineered by Chrysler, unlike the automaker's four-cylinder World Engine family, which was co-engineered by Hyundai, Mitsubishi and the Chrysler group. The four-cylinder engines debuted this year in the 2007 Dodge Caliber, and also will be used in the 2007 Jeep Patriot and Compass.

It is not known whether the new V-6 engine family will include a diesel engine.

Rick Kranz contributed to this report

DaimlerChrysler AG plans to invest about $2 billion in a new global family of V-6 engines.

The "modular" engines will begin appearing at the end of the decade. The basic architecture will be shared by Mercedes-Benz and Chrysler group vehicles.

The project, known internally as Phoenix, will build the V-6s at three Chrysler engine plants in the United States: Kenosha, Wis.; Trenton, Mich.; and Toledo Machine in Ohio. Engines also will be produced at a Mercedes factory in Germany.

"We are working on a new family which can operate on a modular base," DaimlerChrysler CEO Dieter Zetsche said in a recent interview. The program will reduce DaimlerChrysler's V-6 engines "to one family instead of five," Zetsche said.

Chrysler spokesman Mike Aberlich said the company is still completing some "business plan issues" on the program. He said those issues should be resolved within a few months.

UAW sources say DaimlerChrysler is investing about $800 million at Trenton, $700 million at Toledo and $500 million at Kenosha -- a total of $2 billion.

DaimlerChrysler intends to build the engines on flexible manufacturing lines, said a UAW source who declined to be identified.

The flexible lines will allow multiple types of V-6 engines to be made on the same line in any sequence. If one version sells faster than another, production can be stepped up with minor adjustments to tooling, instead of scrapping or underusing the multimillion-dollar machines. Most Chrysler engine lines today are dedicated to a single type of engine.

The automaker plans to offer the first Phoenix engines on 2010 models, the UAW source said. Kenosha Engine probably will make the first engines. The 800 hourly workers there approved work rule changes this summer for a chance at the program.

When production of the new engine starts, job classifications will be reduced to two at the plant. And four-day, 10-hour-a-day workweeks will be instituted.

Workers at Chrysler's Trenton Engine plant and Toledo Machine plant approved similar work rule changes. They, too, expect to produce the new engines. Toledo Machine, in Perrysburg, Ohio, is scheduled to be the last of the three to come on line in 2012, said Paul Lambrecht, a grinder at Toledo Machine who is a councilman in nearby Oregon, Ohio.

Sources say the Mercedes-Benz versions of the engines will contain more high-tech features, including variable valve timing and direct injection.

The engine family is expected to be versatile enough to accommodate everything from base engines to high-performance powertrains. The engines can be adapted to run on everything from Chrysler's front-wheel-drive minivans to rear-drive sedans such as the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Magnum and the Mercedes-Benz C, E and S classes.

Chrysler plans to model many aspects of the program on the Global Engine Manufacturing Alliance, a joint-venture plant in Dundee, Mich., that makes four-cylinder engines used in the Dodge Caliber car, Jeep Compass and Liberty. DaimlerChrysler is a partner in the Dundee plant with Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and Hyundai Motor Co.

The Chrysler group alone is expected to replace four V-6 engine families with the new engine. The Kenosha plant builds the single-overhead-cam 60-degree aluminum block 2.7-liter V-6 used in the Chrysler Sebring and 300 cars.

Kenosha also makes a dual-overhead-cam engine, a 3.5-liter aluminum V-6 that powers the Pacifica crossover. A new 4.0-liter version is expected to be introduced this fall in the 2007 Pacifica and Dodge Nitro SUV.

Chrysler's third V-6 engine is a single-overhead-cam iron block 3.7-liter made at the Mack Avenue plant in Detroit and used in the Dodge Dakota and Ram pickups, Durango SUV, and the Jeep Liberty, Commander and Grand Cherokee.

Trenton builds the fourth engine family: an overhead valve, iron block 3.3- and 3.8-liter V-6 used in Chrysler's minivans and Jeep Wrangler.

The Chrysler Group HEMI V-8 may be losing some luster to high gas prices. A report in the Detroit News says the automaker has trimmed production of the popular engine, which has been available in much of the company's larger vehicles and has become a sort of brand-within-a-brand for Chrysler Group. The cuts at the HEMI plant in Mexico will reduce production by about 20 percent from 1600 engines a day to 1300. Chrysler is also cutting truck and large SUV production for the rest of the year to match the slowdown in sales of those vehicles. The News adds that Chrysler truck sales are down about 13 percent so far this year, with some vehicles like the Dodge Durango falling as much as 41 percent.

Chrysler is targeting its next-generation mid-sized, front-drive vehicles for installation of fuel-saving dual-clutch transmissions.

Chrysler would not comment on product plans for the transmissions. But industry analysts say it most likely would go into Chrysler's front-wheel-drive vehicles. Chrysler wants to build 700,000 units annually.

That means vehicles such as Chrysler's bread-and-butter minivans and the Dodge Avenger sedan could get cutting-edge transmissions. Dual-clutch transmissions improve smoothness and boost fuel economy by 10 percent compared with conventional automatic transmissions.

DaimlerChrysler AG and German supplier Getrag are negotiating to conclude an agreement to build a $560 million plant in Kokomo, Ind. Capacity would be 700,000 transmissions annually.

Job 1 is scheduled for mid-2009, according to a memorandum of understanding addressed from DaimlerChrysler employee-relations officials to UAW officials. Automotive News obtained a copy of the agreement. Getrag and the UAW did not return phone calls.

First made in U.S.

If Chrysler can conclude the deal with Getrag, the UAW and government development authorities, it would become the first automaker to manufacture so-called wet dual-clutch transmissions in the United States. Volkswagen and Audi are the only brands selling vehicles in the United States equipped with the technology.

A wet dual-clutch transmission operates with the smoothness of an automatic and the fuel economy of a manual. It replaces the energy-sapping torque converter with two wet clutches: one that engages first, third and fifth gear and the other that engages second, fourth and sixth. A wet clutch is immersed in lubricating fluid, improving performance and life span.

"The technology is superior to their current automatic transmissions," says Casey Selecman, manager of North American powertrain forecasts for CSM Worldwide in suburban Detroit. "It has better fuel economy, better shift quality, better overall durability."

CSM forecasts that dual-clutch transmissions will begin appearing in the Chrysler group's North American vehicles in the 2010 models. The transmissions would be matched to Chrysler's new Phoenix V-6 engine, also due for the 2010 model year.

George Peterson, an analyst for AutoPacific Inc. in Tustin Calif., says mainstream car buyers won't be attracted by the technology itself but by its benefits.

"What's going to convince them is improvements in fuel economy and drivability," Peterson says. "To make this investment, Chrysler has to be convinced it's going to get these things."

Says Selecman: "They (Chrysler) are not the first to the market. But they would be the highest volume in the market by a substantial margin."

Selecman predicts dual-clutch transmissions will grow from 0.2 percent of the North American market this year to 3.3 percent by 2012.

VW was first

VW is already convinced dual clutches are the future. VW brand Chairman Wolfgang Bernhard said last summer the technology would be available on all VW models in five years.

VW North America spokesman Steve Keyes says the automaker has been surprised at how popular the dual clutch has been with customers. Half of the VW GTIs sold so far this year have dual-clutch transmissions.

"It surprised us a little because the GTI customer was traditionally a stick-shift person," Keyes says.

The memorandum says the plant will be in Kokomo, where Chrysler already operates two transmission plants. But Chrysler spokesman Dave Elshof says other sites are under consideration, including Kenosha, Wis.

Elshof says the venture has not yet received approval from the DaimlerChrysler management board and says no agreement has been reached with the UAW.

"We're building a business case," he says. "There are at least three more steps left in the process before you'd consider we're planning to go ahead."

"It surprised us a little because the GTI customer was traditionally a stick-shift person," Keyes says.

With an eye on its competitors, the Chrysler group has created a separate studio to make its interiors more attractive. Previously, a single studio designed interiors and exteriors.

The move follows criticism by dealers and journalists that Chrysler's interiors need work. Mentioned in particular: the textures, tones and abundance of unattractive plastic trim.

The concern is that "you can get to a point where maybe your cars aren't really competitive anymore because the interior is not as good as a competitor's," said Andrew Dyson, senior manager of Chrysler's product design office. "That could be the customer's deciding factor.

"Our aim is to raise the bar in terms of fit and finish. We've had good themes in the past, and we want to go even further with our themes, use really good materials and really get to a higher level."

Dyson was interviewed at the Geneva motor show.

The interior studio was created in October. Tim Annes is the chief designer, overseeing a staff of about 25.

As Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep vehicles are redesigned or restyled, the interior will be upgraded. The first upgraded vehicles probably will be 2011 models, Dyson said.

Dyson said the automaker has been admiring the interiors of Audi, Volkswagen and a "newcomer." And "we are quite impressed with what General Motors is doing," he said.

He said the cost of interiors will rise, and that will mean cuts elsewhere in vehicle development.

Dealers reacted positively to the prospect of better interiors.

"As the industry reaches a greater level of parity, those amenities and creature comforts are going to be more important," said Chuck Fortinberry, owner of Clarkston Chrysler-Jeep in Clarkston, Mich.

"They'll help take us to the next level and differentiate us against the rest of the pack."

Said Thomas Vann, owner of Team Hillsdale Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep in Hillsdale, Mich.: "We've seen drastic improvement in the cleverness of the interiors and the fit and finish. This was a problem for years.

"Even in the '90s, when they got on the cutting edge, the fit and finish was horrific. Door panels would pop out and just creak and groan. There would be three of us driving in minivans trying to figure out where the noise was coming from."

Fortinberry agrees: "You go back to the old Chrysler interiors - holy cow, we had some ugly stuff. If you look at Jeep Grand Cherokee and some of these other vehicles now, they've got a lot cleaner, more European look."