You're an under-hood expert by now, aren't you? We've been sharing a whole lot of information thanks to Engineering Explained and that means you should be fluent now in "gearhead."

Still, there's always more to learn and today we're taking on a subject that's a bit more complicated, which must mean it involves a bit of German engineering.

Today's topic involves throttle control—sort of. We're dealing with BMW and their system, dubbed Valvetronic.

In a standard car, the throttle system controls the air entering the engine by way of a butterfly valve that responds to your foot pressing the throttle pedal. That's not what happens in a BMW with the Valvetronic system.

Instead, the right pedal adjusts how far the intake valves are opening and this is how air intake is regulated. There's still a butterfly valve in a throttle body, but it merely exists to act as a fail-safe if the Valvetronic system develop an issue. Thus, it's constantly fully open so that the valves can meter airflow.

According to BMW, this setup is more efficient in terms of air delivery and results in improved fuel economy as well. You should also receive better throttle response since the air through the throttle body is flowing at its max rate and the valves can respond quickly to let increased air into the engine.

There are even more benefits which the host of the video above covers. This is one of the Engineering Explained videos that takes a nice healthy dive into the true engineering side of things.