There are fewer and fewer people who believe in the level of the opposite engine.
At present, there are fewer and fewer companies in the world that still use horizontally opposed engines, and there are only three companies in mass production, and only Porsche and Subaru are left in the automobile industry, and only BMW is in the motorcycle industry.
BMW's is called the "boxer engine", which is actually the "horizontally opposed engine" of the automotive industry, with two cylinders placed horizontally and hedging work.
The market share of the boxer engine in this market is lower than imagined, even BMW, Porsche, Subaru several brands, the boxer engine also has its own unique plan, only in the positioning of the sports model, and is a pure positioning of the product, will take out the boxer engine.
Because the vast majority of models do not need a boxer-opposed engine at all, or the abuse of a horizontally opposed engine will definitely backfire on the brand itself.
In fact, we can also see that Porsche, BMW, and Subaru are typical sports brands, and the biggest feature of the horizontally opposed engine is that the center of gravity is lower, and the low center of gravity is conducive to better cornering performance, especially on the track.
But in addition to the advantage of good handling brought by the low center of gravity, the horizontally opposed engine can be said to be "a bunch of problems".
01 High manufacturing costs.
The horizontally opposed engine is not only the high manufacturing cost itself, but also the gearbox, chassis, engine compartment and transmission system debugging that are suitable for the horizontally opposed engine need to be re-engineered.
Expensive is a problem it shows, so let's take a look at it, even if it is Subaru, which has the lowest brand positioning, the landing price of an entry-level model equipped with a horizontally opposed engine needs to be at least 250,000.
02 Extremely low reliability.
That's right, I'm using the expression "extreme."
At a time when the domestic engine can stably pass the 200,000 km mark, the stability period of the horizontally opposed engine is still at 100,000 km, because of the concept of horizontal placement of the cylinder block, the oil will definitely lead to "eccentric wear" due to gravity, and the friction on one side can not be well lubricated, and burning oil for 100,000 kilometers is a problem that cannot be solved well at present.
100,000 kilometers for most consumers at present, may be 3 years, and the problem of burning engine oil will become more and more obvious with the increase of mileage.
03 Troublesome maintenance.
The vast majority of roadside car repair shops may not know how to replace the spark plug of the horizontally opposed engine, and changing the oil and air filter is a troublesome matter, and it must be repaired in an experienced place, which undoubtedly brings a very big problem to the subsequent use.
At present, the biggest feature of the boxer engine is that it sounds tall, and the low center of gravity can bring better handling performance, so the boxer engine is exclusive to sedans.
But in this electrified market environment, there are already better options than horizontally opposed engines, the center of gravity of the motor can be lower, the torque can be larger, and the front and rear power distribution of the four-wheel drive system is more comfortable, and the key thing is that the motor will not have the problem of 100,000 kilometers of performance degradation.
Therefore, in today's market, horizontally opposed engines are already in a state of elimination, and today, when all enterprises are in transformation, this technology born for control should have withdrawn from the stage of history a long time ago.