Why do motorcar engines stop at V12? why isn’t there a V 16 or V20?
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Soon to be automotive engineer here. Here’s the basic gist of it.
1. Size. The current standard engine is between 1L and 2L and has 3-4 cylinders. A V16 or a V20 is gigantic. The biggest running engine is a W16, 2 V8 engines “fused together”. This was the compromise exactly: due to space. Cars would’ve been massive.
2. Pollution. Making a smaller engine more efficient is a lot easier than a bigger one. The bigger one has more moving parts, more variables, a lot more friction, bigger weight, needs more air, uses more fuel, a gigantic hassle.
We’re in 2022 and global warming is a towering threat upon humanity. We’re barely meeting new pollution criteria for V8s, having to resort to technologies like cylinder deactivation and the like. A V16 or V20 is impossible to do currently without major struggle.
3. Design. Such a long and potentially powerful engine won’t stand a chance when it’s this long. A small 3.0L V8 is 50cm long (around 1.5 feet). A 6.0L V16 would then be around 100cm (3 feet). Can you imagine how much that damn thing will wobble and flex and just refuse to cooperate? By making it cooperate we would have to downtune it massively, so the net gain is, simply put, a net loss.
4. Power. Technology got insanely far. If we can get over 800 hp out of a V8, why would you want to bother creating a more powerful V16? Just make that thing even more powerful and don’t bother with the complicated V16.
Obviously, the V20 is an even worse offender in all the categories.
Consequently, smaller engines were the most useful step forward.
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