The Future is Bright for Toyota's New Internal Combustion Engines
Toyota took a while to wade into electrification, but it hasn’t backed off internal combustion engine development, and recently restated its commitment to the format. The automaker is planning revised engines as a “game-changer solution” for a range of vehicles and fuel types.
Working with Subaru and Mazda, Toyota is developing new 1.5- and 2.0-liter engines designed to work with hybrid, extended-range EV, or even hydrogen fuel sources. The company’s VP of product strategy, Andrea Carlucci, told Automotive News that, “We are trying to optimize the new engine for any type of application, whether it’s electric, hybrid, or hydrogen.”
Toyota is reportedly exploring extended-range EVs, in which those engines would act as charger-generators for the batteries. The automaker is already working on the format in China, where the Highlander and Sienna are offered in EREV configurations. Longer-range plug-in hybrids are also expected, which could offer more than 60 miles of electric range, and Toyota’s testing has shown the new engines can deliver that efficiency on a range of fuel types, including synthetic gas.
While much of Toyota’s efforts focus on efficiency, the new engines will support Gazoo Racing-tuned vehicles as well, including what will likely be a next-gen GR Corolla. The larger turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder has already been proven in racing applications, offering up to 600 horsepower in full tune.
[Images: Toyota]
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Chris grew up in, under, and around cars, but took the long way around to becoming an automotive writer. After a career in technology consulting and a trip through business school, Chris began writing about the automotive industry as a way to reconnect with his passion and get behind the wheel of a new car every week. He focuses on taking complex industry stories and making them digestible by any reader. Just don’t expect him to stay away from high-mileage Porsches.
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They describe three engines: an NA 1.5 unit, and turbocharged 1.5 and 2.0 units. It seems like the turbo engines are intended to be the volume ones. So the big question in my mind is whether this will finally bring together a turbocharged engine and a PSD hybrid system. So far Toyota has insisted on putting worse hybrid systems behind its turbo engines, for reasons I don't understand at all.
They should bring back the 3.5L V6 and 5.7L V8.