H2Oh Yeah: Bosch's Power-Boosting Water Injection System Now Available to Automakers

Bosch, the creator of the horsepower-boosting water injection system in the BMW M4 GTS, will now offer the technology to any automaker that wants it.

Spraying distilled water vapor into an engine’s combustion chamber has an added bonus of greatly increasing fuel efficiency — meaning Bosch might have a lineup at its door when the system enters mass production in 2019, Autocar reports.

BMW was the first customer to use Bosch’s system, adding it to the high performance version of its M4. By reducing engine temperatures and knock, water injection helped push the vehicle’s output from 425 horsepower to 493. Torque saw a similar bump.

The company claims the technology can be used in any vehicle class, from minicar to supercar. The timing is also right, as regulators around the world mandate lower emissions and higher fuel economy.

Water injection is sometimes used on piston and turbine-powered aircraft to improve engine thrust, but Bosch claims the main goal for its automotive technology isn’t power. The company says its system improves gas mileage by 13 percent and reduces emissions by 4 percent. Power levels will rise by 5 percent.

“The system works best on cars with an output of more than 80 kW (107 bhp) per litre,” Bosch global project manager Fabiana Piazza told Autocar. “We’re launching it into the market now as tighter legislation and new real driving emissions tests are increasing the importance of this technology in all cars.”

Piazza said that working with BMW helped refine the technology and bring it to a wider market.

So, how much water would a vehicle equipped with the system use? Not much, Bosch claims. The M4 GTS has a five liter tank in the trunk, but other models could see larger or smaller tanks, depending on vehicle size and cargo space. One tank is good for 1,800 miles, the company claims, and if it runs dry, there’s no problem — only power and mileage will suffer as a result.

One technical issue remains: cold weather, and how to keep the water tank (and lines) from freezing. Bosch is investigating using either engine heat or an electrical system to warm up the system, but hasn’t made a decision yet.

[Image: USAF/Wikimedia]