Jaguar Land Rover expands Ingenium powertrain family

Jaguar Land Rover has unveiled a range of a range of new Ingenium petrol engines and announced a £30 million research project into advanced new transmissions, called Transcend.

The four-cylinder 2.0-litre Ingenium petrol engines will be produced at JLR’s £1 billion Engine Manufacturing Centre in Wolverhampton. The company says they deliver up to 25% more power than the engines they replace, while consuming up to 15% less fuel. They use a range of technologies including an electro-hydraulic valvetrain, integrated exhaust manifold and a twin-scroll turbocharger with ceramic ball bearings, and will be available from next year.

Three versions of the 2.0-litre petrol Ingenium engine will be available, with 197bhp from a single scroll turbo, or 247bhp and 296bhp using a twin scroll turbo.

Nick Rogers, JLR’s Group Engineering Director, commented: “Environmental innovation is at the heart of our strategy to dramatically reduce emissions up to 2020 and beyond. With the Ingenium family of powertrains and advanced research projects such as Transcend, future Jaguar Land Rover vehicles will emit significantly less CO₂. By 2020, new technologies will help us reduce our CO₂ emissions by a further 25 percent.”

The Ingenium range of engines is modular, with a capacity of 500cc per cylinder, which means that parts and designs can be shared among different sizes. The arrival of the 2.0-ltre petrol Ingenium units follows the announcement of diesel versions last year. Straight-six, 3.0-litre units were confirmed earlier in 2016, and 1.5-litre, three-cylinder engines are planned as well.

“Ingenium has been developed as a modular family of powerful, efficient and refined all-aluminum petrol and diesel engines. All Ingenium engines deliver benchmark low levels of friction, contributing to inherently good efficiency and refinement,” added Rogers.

Transcend is an acronym for Transmission Supply Chain Excellence for Next Generation Dual Clutch Technologies - the name of a research project by five organisations, of which JLR is the lead. The consortium is developing an eight-speed transmission that will improve efficiency and expand all-wheel drive capability. It uses an ultra-wide ratio spread of 20:1 – double that of other eight-speed transmissions – to integrate a low-range gearbox with dual-clutch and hybrid technology. JLR says it offers a fuel-saving capability of up to 10% and better off-road performance, and will weigh 20kg less than existing comparable gearboxes.

“Transcend demonstrates Jaguar Land Rover’s commitment to original research that improves the driving experience and the environmental performance of our vehicles. It will make manoeuvring and off-road use easier than ever before for drivers whilst also improving on-road vehicle dynamics and CO2 emissions,” summed up Rogers.

The £30 million Transcend project has been part-funded to the tune of £15 million over three years by the UK government’s Innovate UK agency, as part of a push to help promote the export of hybrid vehicle technologies. Also in the consortium are engineering consultancy Drive System Design, Tata Steel, green technology group Productiv and technology and innovation organisation HVM Catapult.

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