Infiniti moving away from V8 power

AutoBlog: Infiniti moving away from V8 power

According to Motoring.com.au, Infiniti will slowly be killing off its naturally aspirated V8 powerplants. The report comes after the Australian site spoke with Johan de Nysschen, Infiniti's global president, who stated that eight-cylinder engines are not in the product plans for any new vehicles currently on the drawing board.

"I am afraid (U.S.) CAFE regulations and emission regulations around the world make the development of V8s as part of a new family of engines almost impossible," reiterated Andy Palmer, executive vice president for Nissan.

That said, Palmer later told the Australian site that having a V8 in its lineup does not dictate overall performance. "F1 has gone V6 for example. You can get the performance out of a V6 or an I4 and you can get the fuel consumption out of it." Moving forward, Infiniti will likely switch to boosted four- and six-cylinder powertrains that will offer comparable V8 performance with better overall fuel economy.

This certainly isn't a new trend in the automotive world. Many automakers are ditching V8 engines for more efficient V6 powerplants. Audi, for example, has replaced the vast majority of its 4.2-liter V8 engines with 3.0-liter supercharged V6 units in just the last couple of years. And on a larger scale, Ford is enjoying lots of success with its 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged V6 under the hood of its once V8-only F-150 pickup.

Here in the United States, Infiniti uses a 5.0-liter V8 under the hood of the FX50 and employs a larger 5.6-liter V8 in the M56 sedan and QX56 SUV. The report does not say if these V8-killing plans will also affect the Nissan lineup, which currently utilizes eight-cylinder engines in the Armada SUV, Titan pickup and NV commercial van.