Okay, so here’s the thing: we love Jaguar’s supercharged V8s. We wish we could spin them into fiber and wear them as our clothes. Then we wish those clothes could go into a laundry-to-food converting-machine so that we could make them into the most perfect sandwich ever and eat that while watching Pineapple Express over and over again.
Since we can’t do that, we will instead devote a moment to one of the most important announcements Jaguar Land Rover has made this year: its new engine core, the Ingenium. For years JLR has been reusing the engines co-developed with Ford during those early 2000s when everyone was so relieved Y2K wasn’t a thing that we were willing to countenance any and all business decisions. That engine tech is dated, however, and if there’s one thing that determines the character and ability of a vehicle more than anything else, it’s the engine.
Therefore, Jaguar Land Rover realized it needed a new central core of engine technology, just like the Intel or AMD microprocessor that’s running on the computer or mobile device you’re reading this on right now. And just like a good microprocessor, this new core needs to be able to survive years of technological innovation that not only hasn’t happened yet, we might not even have imagined it. As JLR put it, a new engine core has to be able to keep up with “advances in fuel, turbocharging, emissions, performance and electrification.”
The only way to secure an engine with such precise technical specifications is to bring the project in-house and literally design it for yourself, which is exactly what Jagaur Land Rover has done. Using a nearly $900 million brand-new plant at Wolverhampton, JLR has developed the Ingenium engine, a modular core that uses patented technologies to reduce friction and weight. It weighs less and produces more energy with less effort than any other engine JLR possesses.
The Ingenium will be able to work with rear-, all-, four-wheel drive and hybrid powertrains. It can accept gasoline or diesel, has the same aluminum blocks for bore, stroke, cylinder spacing and capacity, and is packed with all the futuristic engine mumbo-jumbo that only engineers care about but every 17-year-old with a lead foot can abuse. In short, this is the shrewdest possible business move that a multi-brand automaker can make to secure its profitability.
With Jaguar Land Rover’s launching of its Special Operations division for high-performance orders, and the success of the F-Type, we wouldn’t be worried about its dedication to V8s, either. If anything, this opens up all sorts of possibilities for even more impressive high-spec engines. Come by Jaguar Land Rover Cary to test one out for yourself.