Look anywhere, and you’ll find that sustainability is driving the story across industries. The world is pursuing efficiency gains and more sustainable ways to do business everywhere, and that’s especially true in the mobility space.

And while electrification is one major strategy to achieving a more sustainable world, the truth is that more traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles will remain on the road for the foreseeable future. Maximizing the efficiency, emissions, and fuel economy of those vehicles is increasingly important.

GF-7 raises the bar for what modern lubricants can contribute to today’s and tomorrow’s vehicles.

Enter ILSAC GF-7, the new North American passenger car engine oil specification that will see first license on March 31^st, 2025. Its rapid development has been a necessary, industrywide push to deliver greater fuel economy and other important performance benefits for new-model engines, enabling them to meet government-mandated standards on an accelerated timeline.

GF-7 raises the bar for what modern lubricants can contribute to today’s and tomorrow’s vehicles, and that is a positive thing for the lubricants industry as a whole. We are collectively able to leverage new science to provide new heights in performance and protection for not just new engine hardware, but ICE vehicles of every age. Taken collectively across the vehicle parc in North America, these gains will be significant, and they will have a real impact in benefiting our environment.

Simultaneously, specification upgrades like GF-7 offer an opportunity for our industry to capture new value in the marketplace. Lubrizol representatives are closely involved in the specification development process, and part of our work—in addition to providing technical insight into new testing processes—is to ensure that an upgrade of this magnitude is truly meaningful. The industry push behind developing GF-7, and in developing products that meet its standards, requires massive investment. It therefore must be possible to see returns on that investment, allowing our industry to capture continued growth and success.

Specification upgrades like GF-7 offer an opportunity for our industry to capture new value in the marketplace.

At Lubrizol, our purpose is to deliver sustainable solutions to advance mobility, improve well-being, and enhance modern life. Our work with GF-7—including our involvement in the development process and our additive technology designed to help enable oil marketers to meet the required performance characteristics—is reflective of that purpose. We believe in this specification’s importance as another milestone on our industry’s collective journey toward a more sustainable future.

Indeed, it’s not the end of the road. Initial discussions are already underway about a potential GF-8, an even more rigorous performance specification that will inevitably succeed and replace GF-7. It will be another necessary step forward toward greater fuel economy, higher levels of performance, and a brighter future for our world.

Are you prepared for GF-7? Learn about Lubrizol’s Specification Readiness Program, designed to help our customers best position themselves for success at first license.

The Necessity of GF-7: A Milestone in Our Journey to a More Efficient Future