Last week, the team at Horse Powertrain USA celebrated the opening of our new office in Detroit. This marks the beginning of a new chapter for Horse Powertrain USA, with our initial team – including Tom Lewis, Horse Powertrain USA’s President – now being joined by our new colleagues working across business functions such as finance, marketing, and HR. It marks a major moment for Horse Powertrain as a whole.
But why does a single new office matter so much to a company that already employs 19,000 people across Europe, Asia, and the Americas? The answer lies in understanding what Horse Powertrain means for the US market.
According to Car Database Atlas, a new passenger vehicle launching in Europe or Asia this year has an engine that displaces around 2.5 liters. By contrast, a new model launching in the US has an average engine displacement of 4.4 liters.
Why is this the case? A lot of this comes down to the fact that US passenger vehicles are heavier. In Asia the average new model weighs around 4,200lb (1,900kg), and in Europe it weighs 4,400lb (2,000kg). In the US, however, new models weigh 5,500lb (2,500kg).
However, that doesn’t explain the full picture. While new US vehicles are 25% heavier on average, their engines are still 75% larger than the European and Asian average. And compared to Europe, the average new US model outputs only 5.7% more horsepower and 21.4% more torque. Rather, what’s at play is something deeper: geography.
An introduction by Horse Powertrain USA President Tom Lewis
Read more about why the 80/20 rule is reshaping powertrain strategy.
According to Worldometer:
While a single statistic, this two-thirds lower population density captures a variety of differences in the geography of the US compared to Europe and Asia. And these matter for driving habits.
Lower population density captures how US drivers need to drive for a greater share of the time, and make greater use of long-distance roads and highways. These longer trips mean that US drivers have placed a premium on vehicles that can rapidly deliver torque and cruise at constant speeds – whether it be for highway driving or for greater assurance when it comes to towing. And this means large, naturally aspirated engines are preferred.
This goes together with another reality of lower US population density: it has more natural resources per capita, and particularly fuel. The result is that:
As a result, European and Asian automakers have very different incentives placed on them by governments and consumers, compared to their US counterparts. They’ve operated in markets that encourage efficiency and fuel economy above all else, whether it be from consumer demand or government intervention, even if it’s at the expense of rapid torque and power.
The result has been that Europe and Asia have been at the forefront of adopting solutions like turbochargers that allow a smaller engine to have far better fuel economy compared to a larger, naturally aspirated engine at the same power level.
This hasn’t been an acceptable trade-off for the US market, since the same economic and regulatory pressure for fuel economy hasn’t existed, and there’s much greater demand for rapid torque and power. As a result, these smaller engines haven’t penetrated the US market.
Horse Powertrain USA held an office opening ceremony in early September 2026
Read more about why some transport applications will keep needing fuel.
However, the rise of hybrids is changing this story. Hybrid technology means that the old trade-off between large engines with high torque and small engines with great fuel economy doesn’t hold any more.
This is because an electric motor can near-instantly deliver full power and torque from rest. When used in a hybrid powertrain, this means an electric motor can provide very high torque to support a smaller turbocharged engine and deliver the same “feel” as a responsive, large, and naturally aspirated engine.
This is the journey that Asia and Europe have embarked on in recent decades, and have been embraced by consumers. In the EU, hybrids and plug-in hybrids made up 47.1% of new vehicle sales in the first half of 2026. After many years of investment and scaling up of the technology, hybrids have evolved into the vehicle category synonymous with top-tier fuel economy, a responsive driving experience, all with low noise and vibration.
By comparison, hybrids and plug-in hybrids made up just 17.4% of new vehicle sales in the US. This is, in part, because US automakers haven’t faced the same pressure or demand to invest so much in the technology – they simply haven’t faced the same geographic or regulatory pressure as European or Asian automakers.
Despite being powered by smaller engines, hybrids are now capable of delivering on all the expectations of US consumers – all while offering new compelling upsides, and complementing the rollout of pure-electric vehicles. But because of geography and history, many US automakers are facing having to replicate decades of R&D and product evolution that European and Asian automakers previously faced.
Read more about why hybrids will stay central to global mobility.
This is where Horse Powertrain comes into play.
With over 125 years of engineering heritage drawn from Renault and Geely, along with a complete range of integrated hybrid powertrain solutions – inclusive of engines, transmissions, and power electronics – we can offer US automakers a generational opportunity to rethink their hybrid technology roadmaps.
We represent something very new to the US automotive industry – we transcend the traditional supplier-automaker boundary, and are instead partners of the whole powertrain. Instead of having to learn costly and multi-year lessons when it comes to hybrid system assembly and integration, Horse Powertrain can help US automakers leapfrog the deployment of modern hybrid technology.
The result? World-class hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and range-extended EVs that both deliver what US drivers want and expect, while also offering compelling benefits around fuel economy and driving experience. That’s the vision we’re celebrating and investing in with our new US footprint.
Find out more about our solutions here.