Li Auto DAM12TD (Dong'an)

The 1.2 turbo three-cylinder in the Li Auto ONE — and it is a Dong'an engine, not Li Auto's own.

⚑ It never drives the wheels. The ONE is a range-extended electric car: the engine turns a generator and the generator feeds the motors and the battery. There is no mechanical path from this engine to the road at all, which changes almost every assumption a technician brings to it.

That also changes how it wears. A generator engine runs at a narrow band of speed and load chosen for efficiency, so it never idles in traffic, never labours up a hill and never sees a cold full-throttle start. Mileage is a poor guide to its condition and running hours are the meaningful number.

A driveability complaint on a car like this is usually not the engine. The motors, the inverter, the battery and the control strategy sit between it and the road, and any of them will produce symptoms that read as engine faults.

Dong'an Power is an independent Chinese engine maker, and its own material is the source rather than Li Auto's.