Hotfire gets a boost from Ricardo

Ricardo’s Syner-D programme gives a pointer to how JaguarLandRover’s next-generation Hotfire engine could progress towards meeting Euro 6 emissions requirements and CO2 reductions of over 30 per cent.

The Syner-D project, partly funded by the Technology Strategy Board, the UK’s innovation agency, had as its main aim: to deliver a premium vehicle demonstration vehicle offering a CO2 reduction of 30 per cent, Euro 6 tailpipe emissions and suffering no compromise in transient variability and overall performance.

The three-year programme included input from JLR, Valeo, SKF, Shell and Lontra.

Jaguar to double sales in three years

Jaguar will double its annual sales to a six-figure total within the next two or three years as a result of the new powertrains, body variants and drive systems it has introduced in the past 12 months, according global brand director Adrian Hallmark.

The company now offers four-wheel-drive versions of the XF and XJ saloons in markets prone to bad winters or plagued by poor roads; has added a Sportbrake (estate) version of the XF in Europe; and has introduced a 2.0-litre engine to avoid China's steep taxes on larger engines, plus supercharged 3-litre V6s which bring down the average CO2 emissions of the range and help to offset declining buyer interest in V8s.

Both Jaguar and Land Rover import these 2-litre EcoBoost engines from Ford’s engine plant in Valencia – see previous story. The engines are customised to JLR’s specification.

Ricardo/JLR in I4 engine pact

Will Ricardo provide valuable engineering support to help JaguarLandRover (JLR) integrate its new Hotfire four-cylinder gasoline and diesel engines into the car maker’s products when then engines appear in 2014/2015?

 A clue to the answer perhaps can be found in the latest issue of Ricardo’s house magazine RQ. The concluding sentence in an article describing Ricardo’s role in the integration of Land Rover’s I4 gasoline engine into the latest XF and XJ products states: ‘For Ricardo it is another box ticked and an already successful relationship is moving from strength to further strength’.

Without doubt, the joint work by engineers from JLR and Ricardo to integrate the four-cylinder gasoline engines into cars initially engineered for vee-engines is a substantial task if the same essential vehicle attributes are to be retained. That joint work no doubt will be of direct benefit in the future when JLR comes to integrate the new Hotfire I4 gasoline and diesel engines into a range of vehicles. Hotfire will be manufactured at site i54 near the M54, Wolverhampton.