Frederick William Lanchester joined the Forward Gas Engine Company Birmingham, England in 1889. He carried out what was possibly the earliest experiments with fuel injection.
Indirect fuel injection has been used in diesel engines since the mid 1920s, almost from their introduction (due to the higher energy required for diesel to evaporate). The concept was adapted for use in petrol-powered aircraft during World War II, and direct injection was employed in some notable designs like the Daimler-Benz DB 603 and later versions of the Wright R-3350 used in the B-29 Superfortress.
An injection system developed by Robert Bosch GmbH|Bosch was first used in an automobile in 1955 with the introduction of the Mercedes-Benz 300SL. An electronic fuel injection system was also developed by the Bendix Corporation.
In 1957, Chevrolet introduced a mechanical fuel injection option for its 283 V8 engine, made by General Motors.This system used a single central plunger to feed fuel to all eight cylinders, in contrast to Mercedes' individual plunger for each of the six cylinders, but it nevertheless produced 283 hp (211 kW) from 283 in³ (4.6 L), making it the first production engine in history to exceed 1 hp/in³ (45.5 kW/L).
Fuel injection systems such as Hillborn were frequently seen on modified American V8 engines in high performance automobiles of the 1960s, in drag racing, oval racing, and road racing. These systems were quite unsuitable for street use, however.
In 1968, in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency began to restrict automotive exhaust emissions and enacted a series of laws coming into effect over the next several years. This change became the primary driver behind the adoption of fuel injection systems on a mass scale.
Bosch developed the first production electronic fuel injection system, called D-Jetronic (D for Druck, the German word for pressure) in 1967, with the system first appearing on 1968 model year cars. This was a speed/density system, using intake manifold pressure and engine speed as the primary signal on how much fuel to inject. The system used all analog discrete electronics and an electro-mechanical pressure sensor. These systems were adopted by Volkswagen|VW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Volvo.
Lucas licensed the system and production units for Jaguar. Bosch replaced this with a mass-flow system, using a mechanical airflow meter to judge how much fuel to inject. This system, L-Jetronic (L for Luft, German for air), first appeared on 1980 model year cars, and was very widely adopted on European cars of that period. It was also licensed by Japanese firms and appeared on Japanese cars a short time later.
In 1975, California's emissions regulations, the tightest in the world at that time, required manufacturers to use chemical exhaust reactors to handle unburnt mixture. Catalytic convertors in the exhaust system, combined with the heat of the exhaust catalyzed the oxidation of free hyrdocarbons and carbon monoxide into water and carbdon dioxide. Control of oxides of nitrogen came under strict control in 1980, which required a reducing catalyst which split these molecules into free nitrogen and oxygen. These catalysts required all tetraetyhl lead to be removed from gasoline, and required strict control of fuel mixtures, or the catalysts lost their effectiveness.
The early fuel injection systems were "open loop", using an internal map of airflow to fuel to control mixture, which worked well when engines were new, but drifted off calibration as the engine wore. Full closed loop feedback control appeared in 1980 with the introduction of the Lambda-Sond sensor, commonly referred to as the oxygen or O2 sensor. This resembled a spark plug in the exhaust system, and measured free oxygen content in the exhaust, which was proportional to fuel mixture. Such controls allowed the now required catalytic convertors to operate effectively for tens of thousands of miles. Exhaust emissions plummetted. By 2000, emissions on new cars were less than 1% of emissions on 1960 models.
The introduction of microprocessor controls allowed the integration of fuel injection and ignition control, with systems appearing in 1982. Full engine management systems came shortly afterwards, with control of all engine systems under computer control. In 2005, many new cars had multiple computers on board controlling every aspect of the car.
