The production line for mass producing turbocharged engines was unveiled on Saturday by Iran’s largest auto manufacturer, Iran Khodro.
Present at the event were Minister of Industries, Mining and Trade Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, CEO of IKCO Hashem Yekezare and Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri—an advisor to Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei—who test drove the vehicle on the premises.
“This is the first time a turbocharged engine has been manufactured in Iran,” Keyvan Vaziri, design and product development deputy at IKCO, was quoted as saying by local technology website Zoomit.
The new Soren has a 16-valve, 1.7-liter, four-cylinder engine, a first for the company.
The official noted that compared to older models, the new turbocharged Soren reduces fuel consumption by 7% and harmful emissions are cut by 13%, according to its own internal results.
Vaziri added that power and torque have each increased by 40%.
The turbocharged Soren consumes 7.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers and has 155 horsepower and 214 torque. The car hits 0-100 km/h in 10 seconds.
IKCO officials claim that the vehicle complies with Euro-4 emission standards, a requirement in many markets.
Technology advances have enabled increasing the amount of air entering the engine by 30-fold and boosted engine efficiency by 40%.
The price of the turbocharged Soren has not yet been announced.
According to Vaziri, IKCO plans to implement the same technology in future production of dual-fuel engines and compressed natural gas engines.
Speaking to IRNA, the official added that the next car to be updated with the technology is IKCO’s Dena.
“Nearly 100 billion rials ($2.7 million at market exchange rate) have been invested in the project,” he said.
“If we were to start from scratch, the needed investment would have increased eightfold.”
Vaziri noted that the company will be producing 30 units of the engine daily while projecting that up to 20,000 turbocharged Sorens will be produced in the next Iranian year (starting March 20, 2016).
