Saudi Aramco is betting the internal combustion engine will be around for a “very, very long time” as the world’s largest oil company spots a business opportunity from the rise of the electric car. The state-owned oil group, which made $500bn in revenues last year mainly from producing and selling crude, last month took a €740mn, 10 per cent stake in Horse Powertrain, a company dedicated to building fuel-based engines.
You don’t have to make a big investment, you don’t have to reshuffle your engineering, you can have something much faster, still producing out of your plants, employing people out of your region and offering more options to the final consumer.” Horse is able to build 80 per cent of the engine types currently on the market, according to Giannini.