Set to debut in the Jaguar XE, the new units are the replacement to the former Ford-derived engines and have been designed and engineered in-house by Jaguar Land Rover engineers. Volume production begins in early 2015 at the all-new Jaguar Land Rover Engine Manufacturing Centre near Wolverhampton in the UK, with the first engine to be a 2.0-litre diesel known as AJ200D.

The new engines weigh up to 80kg less than today’s engines and also use patented technologies to reduce friction and deliver class-leading CO2 emissions, refinement and high performance.

The units have also been designed to be configurable and flexible to enable their use in a range of new Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles. They can also be scaled up or down to meet future needs and can accommodate a range of powertrain layouts including rear, all and four-wheel drive. They have also been engineered to support electrified hybrid drive systems.

All diesel and petrol Ingenium variants will be equipped with turbochargers to improve performance, particularly at low speeds, and reduce consumption and CO2 emissions.

JLR added that the first Ingenium engine to go into volume production will be a 2.0-litre diesel known as AJ200D, which delivers a 17% reduction in friction thanks to new roller bearings on the camshaft and balancers, new computer-controlled oil and water pumps and clever use of materials. This helps to help make it one of the most efficient and responsive 2.0-litre turbo diesels in its segment.

‘Ingenium fulfils our commitment to offer our global customers some of the most advanced powertrains available in some of the lightest vehicles in the premium SUV and performance car segments,’ said Ron Lee, Jaguar Land Rover director of powertrain engineering.

‘Being configurable and flexible are the two key strands of Ingenium’s DNA because we have future-proofed our new engines from the outset. Ingenium will be able to accept new advances in fuel, turbocharging, emissions, performance and electrification technologies when they are ready and accessible to be deployed.

‘We were able to design Ingenium in this way because we had the rare opportunity to start the project with a clean sheet of paper. We weren’t locked into any of the usual restrictions that force engineering compromises because we had no existing production machinery that would dictate design parameters, no carryover engine architectures to utilise and no existing factory to modify,’ said Lee.

JLR added that the new range has been tested on over two million miles of real roads before going into production.