Know your engine.
Twelve cylinders in a V — the smoothest grand-touring flagship.
Twelve cylinders in two banks of six share one crankshaft. With a power pulse every small turn of the crankshaft, the engine runs with exceptional smoothness, and its sound is refined rather than raw.
Silky, quiet strength — the engine of flagship grand tourers and ultra-luxury cars. Effortless at any speed, with a sound that is more opera than noise.
Take the V12 apart piece by piece and see how it works — in 3D, or as a static diagram if your browser can't show 3D.
Real cars from our database with this engine type. Figures are shown only where our sources record them — a blank means the figure is not on file, not that it is zero.
Desert heat is the hardest test a car's cooling system faces. Here is how the system copes — and why it matters more for UAE drivers than for drivers in cooler climates.
Coolant circulates through passages in the engine block and cylinder head, picks up heat, then passes through the radiator — a heat exchanger of thin tubes and fins — where the heat is given to the outside air before the coolant returns to the engine. A water pump keeps it moving, and a thermostat holds the engine at its best working temperature, opening to the radiator once the engine is warm. [1][2]
At speed, air rushing through the grille does much of the cooling. In slow traffic or at a standstill there is almost no airflow, so electric fans take over — they are switched on by a thermostat or the engine computer and give good cooling at low speed and when stationary, which is exactly the situation in a summer traffic jam. [1]
Engine oil does more than lubricate — it also carries heat away from parts the coolant cannot reach. Sustained heat makes oil break down faster: it loses viscosity, the protective film between moving parts gets thinner, and oxidation forms sludge that can clog oil passages. That is why oil condition and oil-change intervals matter more in hot climates, and why some cars add a separate oil cooler that works like a small radiator. [3]
Lithium-ion batteries age faster when they run too hot or too cold — they work best in a comfortable middle range. Most modern EVs therefore use liquid cooling: coolant flows through plates or channels touching the cells and carries the heat away. In hot weather the cooling system uses some of the battery's own energy, which can trim driving range, and fast charging adds more heat for the system to remove. [4]
A cooling system has to hold the engine at a steady temperature whatever the weather and the load — and hot weather plus heavy load is the hardest combination. [2] In the UAE that means long hot days, slow traffic with little airflow, and air conditioning adding load. Practical habits that follow from how the system works: keep the coolant at the right level, keep the radiator fins clear of dust and sand, and take the temperature gauge seriously — if it climbs, ease off and get the car checked rather than pushing on.
Eight cylinders firing in turn, so the pushes overlap into one smooth, deep pull. Read the full plain-language explanation on the V8 page.
A petrol engine makes power by burning fuel in cylinders — hundreds of small explosions a minute, turned into spin by pistons and a crankshaft. An EV skips all of that: a battery feeds an electric motor that spins directly, so the pull is instant and silent and there is no exhaust at all. The trade-off is everyday life: petrol cars refuel in minutes anywhere, while EVs charge at home or at public chargers and need their batteries kept cool in desert heat. Neither is better for everyone — it depends on your driving, your charging options, and what you enjoy.
This car's engine
A labelled schematic built from simple 3D shapes — not a real engine. Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom, tap any part to learn what it does.
Four-stroke cycle
Press play to watch the cycle: intake, compression, power, exhaust — one step at a time.