Jaguar Land Rover reveal more on the new Ingenium Engine range

As Jaguar Land Rover get closer to building their new Ingenium engine range they have revealed more about the range of ultra efficient 2.0 litre engines.

Much has changed at Jaguar Land Rover in the last few years, with Land Rover’s model range undergoing a dramatic transformation with the Evoque, Range Rover and Range Rover Sport (and the new Discovery family on it way with the Discovery Sport) boosting sales and appeal.

And the same is happening at Jaguar with the XF and XJ offering real competition to the German premium brands, the F-Type carving out a hugely appealing niche of its own and the new Jaguar XE on its way to take on the BMW 3-Series and Mercedes C-Class.

But the missing piece of the puzzle is the introduction of a new range of engines developed and built by JLR to replace the still able, but bought-in, engines JLR currently use.

That will start to happen when the first of the range of Ingenium engines starts to roll out of JLR’s new engine plant in 2015, and they do look very promising.

Compact, lightweight, modular and with low emissions, the new Ingenium petrol and diesel engines are based around a 4-cylinder lump with 500cc per pot and will be scalable – which means the possibility of 3 and 6 cylinder versions to come in the future.

Weighing up to 80kg less than the engines they replace, the new Ingenium engines will work with both RWD and 4WD drivetrains, the Ingenium engines all come with with turbos, direct injection, variable valve timing, stop-start and with computer-controlled oil and water pumps to reduce friction.

The first engine – which will see use in the new Jaguar XE and Discovery Sport – will be a 2.0 litre turbocharged diesel – the AJ200D – which will have 17 per cent lower friction than the current 2.2 litre diesel and be one of the most efficient and responsive 2.0 litre diesels on the market and have the ability to offer emissions under 100g/km with other versions capable of delivering up to 400bhp.

Ron Lee, JLR Director of Powertrain Engineering, said:

Ingenium fulfils our commitment to offer our global customers some of the most advanced powertrains available in some of the lightest vehicles in the premium SUV and performance car segments.

Being configurable and flexible are the two key strands of Ingenium’s DNA because we have future-proofed our new engines from the outset. Ingenium will be able to accept new advances in fuel, turbocharging, emissions, performance and electrification technologies when they are ready and accessible to be deployed.

We were able to design Ingenium in this way because we had the rare opportunity to start the project with a clean sheet of paper. We weren’t locked into any of the usual restrictions that force engineering compromises because we had no existing production machinery that would dictate design parameters, no carryover engine architectures to utilise and no existing factory to modify.

It’s a strong pitch from JLR for the efficacy of their new engines, and if they come anywhere close to delivering on the promise the Ingenium range of engines could well be the final piece of the puzzle that drives JLR to be a proper global player.