Future turbochargers will deliver more power and efficiency

By now, you know turbochargers a
re not the failure-prone spinners they were in the 1980s, no longer the bolt-on pieces that pulverised weak engines and their weak parts with surges of intoxicating power. Today, nearly one in every four new vehicles sold in North America comes with at least one turbo, if not two. Enough of our favourite engines have succumbed to pressurised, exhaust-driven induction—Mercedes’ AMG V-8s, BMW’s inline-sixes, and, most recently, the Porsche flat-six—that there’s no turning back. They’re efficient, reliable, and getting better—and cheaper.

Within five years, nearly half the world’s new light-duty vehicle sales will be turbocharged—some 18 million more than today—with an estimated 39-percent take rate within North America. That’s according to engineers at Honeywell, the world’s preeminent turbo manufacturer, with whom we sat down to talk about what’s coming for the next generation of turbocharged engines.