Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Jaguar envisions future without V8 engines

With tighter emissions and fuel economy regulations looming, Jaguar may have to do more than make a small, fuel-efficient hatchback to lower its model range's consumption figures – it also might give up its venerable V8 power, Drive reports. But not anytime soon, says Steven de Ploey, Jaguar's product and marketing director, who recognizes that the V8 can be replaced only by something that offers the same, or better, performance. But he has a word of caution: "We are not wedded to V8s."

In the meantime, de Ploey says there are other ways to reduce emissions. One of the first steps Jaguar could take is to shift away from the use of superchargers, which aren't as good as turbochargers at maintaining efficiency and making power. But he adds that supercharging still is "at the heart of Jaguar's performance proposition," and that the company has addressed the current downsizing trend by "replacing our naturally aspirated V8 with a 3.0-liter supercharged V6."

Consider one of de Ploey's comments on the cancelled C-X75 supercar (pictured) for some clue about Jaguar's future: "Some of the stuff we have already exploited to the extreme in the C-X75 is the kind of thinking for us and is an essential test bed to see how we could evolve from today to something that is sustainable in the future."

Confused by Jaguar's direction? We are too. It doesn't help that the C-X75 doesn't seem to have the answer to replace the V8 – just some discarded mini-turbines, a 10,000+rpm four-cylinder generator and four electric motors. But the conservative British marque has been thinking outside the box lately...

http://www.autoblog.com/2013/08/21/j...ut-v8-engines/

Aron9000

I'd be cool if they went back to big cube, naturally aspirated straight six and V12 motors. Provided the v12 isn't an unreliable piece of crap like their last one.

That 4.2 liter straight six in the 60's Jaguars was one hell of a motor.

I8ABMR

I like the motor options in the F sport and think they should spread those engine options and more across the entire line up. The FI V6 makes more than enough power to make 90% of the buyers very happy. The V8 will be available to those who want more power. I really dont see them going to 4 cylinder turbo motors at this level in the game

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

XF offers a base 2.0 I4 turbo, XS will too

UDel

Very sad reality, our politicians are going to kill great engine choices with overbearing regulations/fines that are a over reaction to so called "man made global warming". How long will it take for companies to not bother building V10's or V12's anymore and for V8's to just be reserved for really really expensive top end models. We are seeing V8's disappearing already or in the very near future as engine choices in luxury cars, 6 cylinders are even disappearing as choices in family sedans.

Jaguar needed more engine options though, an all V8 lineup was not cutting it but getting rid of all V8's is too drastic.

Blackraven

Agreed.

Aside from overacting politicians, the blame also comes from annoying eco-extremists such as Greenpeace. I mean seriously. If those Greenpiss **************s want to go back to live in forests and caves, then fine.

BUT DO NOT BRAINWASH THE REST OF HUMANITY WITH ANY FORM OF TREE-HUGGING MENTALITY!!!!!!

Infra

iTrader: (1)

Fact: Global warming is happening.

Supposed: Man is contributing to it.

If we know it's happening, and we might be contributing to it, why would we not do what we can, within reason, to curb emissions?

As long as you have the money, you'll be able to buy whatever size engine you want. Because fleet MPG mandates are an AVERAGE, they can still make any V8 they want as long as they sell a ton of small 4-cylinders.

As for the disappearance of the V6 from family sedans - who cares? Turbo 4's are better for most drivers, with better torque and acceleration, and greater fuel efficiency.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

and if they went back to forest and caves, guess what, pollution would be worse from all the fires being burned to keep warm and eat.

because might isn't a sufficient reason to drive millions into poverty from 'well meaning' (at best) programs.

the earth MIGHT (actually it will) get hit with a significant meteor or asteroid at some point. do you see the world spending trillions in the same urgency to prevent such a catastrophe? one that would happen almost instantly, vs. the 'frog in boiling water' problem of so-called global warming.

says it right there... over time, less and less will have the money.

4's have certainly improved tons, but they can't match the smoothness and responsiveness of a 6.

Infra

iTrader: (1)

You do see the world spending money on asteroid detection and methods of deflection. Who says trillions in either case? That's straight hyperbole. MPG mandates are the straw man for people to complain about the dwindling number of V8s offered - reality is that it's simply a change in demand by consumers, NOT government disallowing production of them.

I don't really think it's any concern whether people can afford a V8 or not, in the context of everything else they want in a car. There are currently a lot of strippers that have a big engine, and it's likely this will continue. And a manufacturer can sell whatever the hell they want - they might have to pay a fine if their fleet average is low, but guess what - that fine is passed on to consumers in the price of the car. And consumers aren't willing to pay for low MPG engines.

You're talking about luxuries as if they should be rights - "smoothness" and "responsiveness"? They've always been qualities of more expensive engines. Efficiency and reliability come first no matter what the case or target demographic anyways.

Why lament people not driving V8s, when most of them don't care anyways? If you want one, buy one. The market as a whole is saying they really don't care to have them, and automakers are responding to that.

UDel

The amount of money spent and effort on asteroid detection/possible ways to deal with one is miniscule compared to the real major immediate catastrophic/mass extinction threat they pose especially compared to efforts,legislation, and what is spent on to try to prove "man made global warming" and legislate it, many in the space community have complained about that for years. Why, because there is not much of a political agenda for it nor is there much money to be made from it,(who can you tax/fine).

Engines have been getting much more efficient and cleaner every decade without the need for those ultra stringent CAFE regulations passed/about to go into effect by legislators who generally have no clue about what the realities are in automotive production and what is reasonable/achievable without severely compromising cars or making them much more expensive for consumers. These regulations still don't address much the biggest polluters on the road which are 18 wheelers, box trucks, big work trucks, buses, etc that belch big plumes of black soot in the air, they are everywhere so you can make cars people have to buy much cleaner but you still are going to have that issue. How about letting the market determine what type of cars people want and what works and what isn't over politicians passing extremely stringent legislation that simply kills certain types of engines/cars a segment of the buying population wants.

Those higher performance V8's, V10's, V12, and high revving 6 cylinders/4cylinders that it will be almost impossible to pass future regulations are not bought or driven in very large numbers but there are enough people who buy them love them for there to be a market for them, it is pretty pointless to pass this legislation that will eliminate most of those engines when there are bigger issues. There is no need to kill the V8 or IC performance car when they are not the problem. These stringent CAFE laws in the future don't just make automakers continually improve emissions/mpg, they are effectively killing most larger displacement/multi cylinder engines and dictating that automakers have to make and people have to buy much smaller/lighter cars with electric motors, hybrids with small engines, or 3 and 4 cylinder engines, automakers do not want to be fined for making engines/cars that don't comply or receive the negative attention so they will just drop them. Mass building/using of hybrids and electrics present their own set of problems. It is highly unlikely in the future when those fleet avg's are 45mpg or more will automakers be able to offer any popular engine options over a 4 cylinder or anything popular that is high performance, only a much smaller number of very expensive cars will be offered with anything larger then a 4 cylinder or very high performance.

4cyl turbo's are not better then a good 6 cylinder in most cases and many are not getting much if any better real world fuel economy.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

in the case of existing policies and proposals to 'combat' 'climate change', yes, the amount is trillions. and who says? how about bjorn lomborg, expert in these matters who doesn't deny climate change / global warming is happening, but is critical of the claimed remedies, that in large part will make almost no difference. his analysis showed that the kyoto treaty, if fully implemented which is wasn't and won't be, would cost trillions and probably only delay the most dire predictions of sea rise / temp change etc. by a few years at most - in other words, all that money will make no difference, except RUINING the lives of billions in the mean time, as that money could be put to so much better use, like providing clean water, energy, sanitation, etc., to billions of desperately poor people.

i bet you like al gore too, right? he's the worst charlatan of all time, a liar, and immoral.

even if humans are contributing to climate change, how much are we causing and how much is 'natural'? i doubt anyone knows, but let's say we're 50% of the problem (which i find very hard to believe) - well that means if we managed to stop emitting co2 (assuming that's really the boogeyman everyone claims) altogether, we'd still be left with the other 50% of the problem.

so we'd better learn how to live with climate change, instead of upending the entire world economy so those who seem to hate humans for even breathing can feel like they're doing something.

illogical - consumer demand has gone down because govts have taxed the snot out of fuel, v8s themselves in most countries (out the wazoo), so you have the horse before the cart.

you seem to think the market and consumer behavior and preferences is completely independent of govt policy. that's simply untrue.

each according to their need, huh?

yeesh some more contorted logic... i don't lament whether people are driving v8's or not, especially if they don't care. i lament consumer CHOICE being eroded by irrational power and tax grabbing govt policies which will have no effect on the world's climate.

the u.s., for example, has 5% of the world's population. no matter WHAT the u.s. does energy wise, it will make just about NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL, in terms of global impact on climate. and those who decry the energy consumption of the u.s. forget that eocnomy activity takes energy, especially when it comes to technology, and so unless we want to turn off zillions of 24x7 servers and destroy our economy, energy consumption is going to continue to rise. it must come from somewhere. some wish it would all come from solar cells and wind farms but they each have major issues when it comes to large scale - hey i hope the problems are overcome and we don't need coal, oil, gas, and nuclear power sources much longer, but that's pretty unrealistic and i resent govt policies intended to destroy sources of power to advance some hateful warped environmental agenda.

but obviously you and i see the world very differently. there's rather an irony that you're in texas, the oil state, and a state whose govt loathes about everything being done at the federal level.

Infra

iTrader: (1)

I'm not going to bother responding to the points you make under the fallacious association of me being a communist, without any sort of advocation of that sort of political direction from me EVER.

I'm actually a petroleum engineer, so my knowledge of the oil industry and petroleum economics is likely considerably more in depth than yours - but I don't like arguments from authority, so I don't use this to support my position. However, in this case you've called me out for some sort of ironic hypocrisy, so it's very relevant.

You present the case as a false dichotomy, either we can solve climate change or we can't. This is so wrong it's painful. There's an entire spectrum of cause and effect we can have on the outcome of climate change. We can absolutely not contribute to an acceleration of it IN ORDER TO give us time to learn to deal with it.

Your logic is kind of like burning a house down because you spilt milk on the carpet. As if there's no middle ground between ignorance and fearful worship.

It's important the federal government manages it's natural resources because the market is short sighted and doesn't care about longevity. So, reduction if consumption of limited resources, whether lumber or oil or agricultural crop or whatever, is part of the governments role. This is not at odds with any political philosophy.

The issue you have is a confusion of management of resource by the means the constitution gives to the federal government (taxation) with an intrusion into what you think should be your freedom (a V8 engine). Now, again, no one is restricting your freedom because you can always buy or build or whatever your own V8 powered vehicle. There is no obligation for anyone to make it affordable for you. There is a profit incentive to do so, if a lot of people like you want to buy one.

But you've constructed a straw man for the lack of choices available to you. Energy policy drives these taxes, and a mild attempt at reducing the amount of oil consumed by cars, which contributed to reduced economic independence, is by no means an overreach of government even by the most modern fundamentally conservative economic policies. What you're really talking about of going back to laissez-faire, which history has shown leads to monopolistic behavior.

Toys4RJill

I agree with.

For the most part, V8 are not needed for a lot of cars these days. A good well designed V6 can do wonders and if fact replace the need for a V8. This was not the case 10+ years ago. When I look at the performance numbers of the V6, I have a hard time justifying the need to have a V8. We also need to remember than car makers are obsessed with get the price down and the price of a luxury badge has never been cheaper.

Moving over to trucks, Ford has shown that a V6 with turbo can match a small sized V8. I would also have a hard time justifying the need for a V8 in a 4Runner when the V6 does so well. Look at how bad the V8 on GX sells. I imagine that V6 GX would sell better and would probably start off as cheaper too.

Now, with cars like the LX of LS, it honestly makes no difference to buyer that it has a V8. I would probably say that a V8 is the price of admission when talking about the real high end models.

LexFather

You are right, they are wrong. We have never had more 400,500,600 and 1,000hp cars. We have to ignore non enthusiasts spouting off the same anti everything rhetoric and look at the facts and people that are enthusiasts actively engaged with cars.

Ten years ago we heard the HP wars were over and here it is today, more horsepower than ever with the tightest regulations ever.

Ironically those posting about the demise of v8/10 etc are avid fans of Honda who makes a v6 tops with 300hp or so. Maybe they secretly want everyone to sell those motors to make Honda look good lol.

Even today as we have moved away from some v-8s these v-6s are so good it's a moot point. Looks at caddys new 420hp TT V-6 for example.