EVERYTHING CARS!

The reports of the death of ICE has been greatly exaggerated

- ABHIMANYU BANSAL

Forget everything you think you know about combustion engines. The next phase isn’t about survival—it’s about mastery. Precision. Peak form. For over a century, the internal combustion engine has been evolving—sometimes in big leaps, sometimes in hidden increments. Now, it’s entering its most radical transformation yet. This is the era of ultra-lean burn, micro-boosted, smart-combustion powertrains. Engineers aren't chasing displacement anymore. They're chasing thermal efficiency—squeezing more energy from every droplet of fuel, with fewer losses and zero drama. Engines are now routinely hitting 45-50 percent thermal efficiency, levels once thought impossible outside F1. Toyota's new-generation hybrid engines touch 51 percent. AVL, Mahle, and Ricardo are working on ICEs that breach 55 percent. These aren't unicorns—these are produc