The challenges posed for JLR’s Hotfire

Design and manufacturing engineers at JaguarLandRover (JLR) now have their own benchmark engine in the form of the Ti 240 four-cylinder gasoline engine they have inserted into the Jaguar XF and XJ models.

Already installed in the Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Freelander, the company has a quarter of four-cylinder gasoline applications.

When it comes to ‘easing’ their own Hotfire gasoline and diesel engines to be manufactured at the new state-of-the-art i54 complex adjacent to the M54 Motorway, the challenge for JLR engineers will not be so much on the installation of the new engines in vehicles, but the Hotfire engines themselves.

Ford timing challenges JLR Hotfire

Ford has said that it will invest £200 million to invest in four-cylinder engine production at its Brook Park, Cleveland, Ohio plant starting 2014 – the timing is similar to that of JaguarLandRover which begins production of its own four-cylinder gasoline and diesel Hotfire engines at Wolverhampton in 2014/2015.

Ford will equip an increasing number of models with smaller, more-efficient powertrains. Ford will add 450 jobs at Brook Park to build the 2-litre engines which the automaker has been building in Valencia, Spain. Valencia will continue to build these engines for Ford European-built vehicles as well as both Jaguar and Land Rover - see also recent item entitled Ricardo/JLR in I4 engine pact.

According to one US analyst, the 2-litre EcoBoost turbocharged engine is close to the power of a V6 with much better fuel economy.