Gasoline direct injection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
According to this you are correct DCB. Under certain conditions the throttle plate is at WOT even at light loads, but I think that is under certain load conditions, while at other load conditions the throttle plate is still used, even in the same engine.
I read about Toyota using that strategy a few years ago even without GDI.
Also they are starting to use multiple injections of smaller amounts of fuel, even during the combustion stroke, with mixture ratios as high as 65 to 1. Apparently lean burn still lives in these operational strategies, without the NOX issues that plagued the earlier Honda lean burn systems.
I would believe (just my opinion) that the considerable research into HCCI has resulted in these new fuel delivery tactics combined with the much higher pressures used to deliver fuel into a combustion chamber even at it highest peak pressure.
regards
Mech