JLR has a new small diesel engine, and big plans
Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover, which hitherto had a Ford engine under its bonnet, will have its own heartbeat. JLR has launched a line of diesel engines under the name of Ingenium, the first of which powers the Jaguar XF that was launched last Thursday.
The company hopes the 2.0-litre engines, made at JLR’s £1-billion engine manufacturing centre in Wolverhampton in England, will be a safeguard against any future diesel bans, and exempt it from the 1% green cess that has been put in place.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court had ordered that diesel vehicles with engine capacity of more than 2,000 cc could not be registered in Delhi. This hit the sales of luxury carmakers, including JLR, till the ban was conditionally lifted in August — the carmaker or dealer would have to deposit 1% of the retail price as a green tax.
For all these years, since JLR started selling in India in 2009, its vehicles had Ford’s 2.2-litre diesel engines, including the Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque; these may also get the new engines. “It will come on other cars also… It is under consideration,” Rohit Suri, president at JLR India told HT.
The XE, which at present has only a petrol variant and competes with Mercedes C-Class and BMW 3-series, will also have the Inginium diesel engine. Jaguar’s firstever SUV (a quarter of passenger vehicles sold in India are SUVs ), the F-Pace, too, will have the 2.0-litre engine.
Due to the better fuel efficiency of diesel, almost 90% of luxury cars sold in India have diesel engines. “This engine raises efficiency by 20%, deliv- ering 19 kmpl in an ideal condition,” said Suri.
JLR’s target is to cut CO2 emissions in its vehicles by 25% by 2020, he said.
This is by no means JLR’s first engine in India — but those present are massive petrol engines in the 4-5 litre range on high-end models.
Auto experts said the new Ingenium engine can be used in Tata Motors cars, especially in the Q5 project — a Tata brand SUV in association with Land Rover.
“On the one hand you mitigate the risk of any further bans, on the other hand it reduces the cost of vehicles if the engines are localised, and allows JLR to attract a wider range of buyers,” felt Amit Kaushik, India head of Urban Science, Detroit-based consultancy.