The Saudi Arabian Oil Company, better known as Aramco, just built a powertrain that makes a Toyota Prius look like a 1960s muscle car. Developed by the firm’s Detroit-based Aramco Americas subsidiary, the compact, naturally aspirated three-cylinder could be a revolutionary way to convert existing combustion platforms to electrification or help automakers repurpose slow-selling EVs into range-extended plug-ins. Best of all, the DHE (or dedicated hybrid engine) doesn’t really use that much complicated engineering, focusing on simple refinements and a very specific combustion cycle to achieve 25 percent greater efficiency than existing gas-electric vehicles.
Â
