Jaguar is undergoing something of a renaissance at the moment, moving away from its overblown retro focus in favour of attractive, modern cars that appeal to a whole new generation of buyer. Having nailed down an attractive design signature for its cars, the next step in the resurrection is an efficient new set of gasoline powertrains and a brand new eight-speed gearbox.
Jaguar Land Rover launched the Ingenium engine family in the diesel Discovery Sport last year, and has now expanded it to include a range of gasoline motors. Thanks to its easily scalable architecture, the technology behind the new range of engines can be adapted for everything from sports saloons to SUVs.
Thanks to a new electro-hydraulic valvetrain, integrated exhaust manifold and twin-scroll turbochargers with ceramic ball bearings, the new family should use up 15 percent less fuel than the engines they replace, all the while delivering up to 25 percent more power than before.
"Ingenium has been developed as a modular family of powerful, efficient and refined all-aluminum petrol and diesel engines," says Nick Rogers, Engineering Director at Jaguar Land Rover. "All Ingenium engines deliver benchmark low levels of friction, contributing to inherently good efficiency and refinement."
The new engines will be launched alongside the new TRANSCENDeight-speed gearbox. With an ultra-wide spread of ratios, it should allow for short, crawl-friendly bottom ratios without sacrificing refinement at highway speeds. In an attempt to future-proof the unit there's an integrated disconnect clutch to help connect it up with hybrid powertrains, and the inbuilt all-wheel drive torque transfer system is able to shuffle power between the front and rear axles.
Despite all this off-road and hybrid cleverness Jaguar says the new unit is up to 20 kg (44 lb) lighter than the average eight speeder, and should offer fuel savings of up to 10 percent. It will be used in longitudinal rear-drive and all-wheel drive cars.
Check out an exploded view of Jaguar's Ingenium engine tech in the video below.
Source: Jaguar Land Rover