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In the past few years the gasoline direct injection (GDI) downsizing approach was the dominating gasoline engine technology used to reduce CO2 emission and to guarantee excellent transient performance. Forecasts for the next several years indicate that the worldwide market share of GDI engines will grow further. By 2022 it is expected that the gasoline DI engine will be the most popular combustion engine for passenger car application. However in the future the gasoline engine will have to comply with more stringent emission and CO2 standards. The European legislation demands a fleet average CO2 emission of 95g/km latest by 2021. Therefore, CO2 emission improvement, without compromising driveability, is the major goal of powertrain development. The perspective of more stringent CO2 and emission legislation in highly loaded drive cycle necessitates major development efforts.

There is no doubt that the modern internal combustion engine (ICE) is approaching its theoretical limits in terms of efficiency. Owed to the fact that the conversion of fuel-bound chemical energy into effectively usable power by combustion is largely defined by the fuel properties, the combustion process and the implicit phenomenon of abnormal combustion is a governing factor that limits further efficiency increases. However, the use of a knock-resistant fuel such as methane is leading to a significant raise in the average combustion pressure and total engine efficiency. In turn this requires a base engine architecture that is specially designed to cater the increased thermal and mechanical requirements so that the positive fuel properties can be fully exploited. Furthermore, an improvement of the energy balance is achieved by utilizing the kinetic energy stored in the vehicle by means of electrical recovery.