In case you haven’t noticed. The German Premium manufactures and the Japanese Luxury manufactures are in the middle of power war to determine who has the best design and figures.
Who has the best designs regardless of size?
Horsepower per liter is the commonly accepted formula for gauging the overall efficiency and performance of a motor regardless of displacement. Any manufacture can insert a large power plant into a vehicle and make it go faster, however it takes a high degree of technological expertise and finesse to extract every last horsepower and ft/lb of torque out of any given design. These technological achievements are typically evident across the entire line up, and are not limited to one or two designs. This also is considered an indicator of how mature the development of the product lineup is when compared to their peers.
With all of the recent banter of who is the best, and really possesses the leading edge. I did an analysis of the big three German Premium Brand and the Big Three Japanese Luxury Brands to see how the figures actually pan out. The results were surprising to me to say the least. I took all of the current auto models and engine specifications for each, and inputted these into a matrix and extrapolated the average horsepower and torque figures per liter for each manufacturer. I did exclude Diesel models (only one) but left in Turbocharged, Supercharged, and Performance Hybrids as they are all considered valid enhancement technologies.
Here are the results:
Horsepower/Liter
91.21 Audi
87.35 Acura
82.55 BMW
82.53 Mercedes Benz
78.74 Lexus
78.30 Infiniti
Ft/Lbs of Torque/Liter
84.95 Mercedes Benz
84.09 Audi
75.42 Infiniti
72.95 Acura
72.48 BMW
72.30 Lexus
As you can clearly see those with less effective designs tend to trail in the matrix. It is interesting to note that while Acura has smallest overall displacement average of only 2.78 liters across the board, it ranks second in the horsepower produced with that smaller displacement. Simply doing more with less is the case here. Whoever said, “there is no replacement for displacement” didn’t do the math.
Avg. Displacement Across the Lineup
5.90 Liters MB
4.20 Liters Audi
4.20 Liters BMW
3.95 Liters Lexus
3.90 Liters Infiniti
2.78 Liters Acura