Subaru to develop turbodiesel boxer engine
While Subaru has decided to use Toyota hybrid technology in it’s efforts to improve fuel economy for it’s petrol-powered vehicles, it has decided to develop it’s own turbodiesel engine to address demands for diesel cars in markets like Europe.
Subaru’s new turbodiesel engine would be modular, and will be introduced as a 2.2 litre 4 cylinder boxer, as well as a 3.3 litre 6 cylinder boxer. Since it is modular, technically a 4.4 litre 8 cylinder boxer could also be possible. It will be designed to be compatible with Subaru’s all-wheel drive technology. There is currently no turbodiesel engine using the boxer (horizontally opposed) cylinder configuration in the world, so Subaru’s will be the first.
Subaru expects half of total Subaru sales in Europe to be diesel-powered by 2010. The engine is expected to be complete by 2007 or 2008. It will be developed by a 40-member R&D division based in Japan.
Motor Image, a Tan Chong International Ltd company based in Singapore will be building Subaru Impreza rally cars together with Prodrive UK, the company behind the Subaru Rally Team. The rally cars will be produced at a new USD$15.4 million production facility in Singapore. They will be Group N vehicles, which are basically production vehicles but fitted with safety equipment incompliance with FIA’s rules and regulations for Group N rally cars. This will probably be Singapore’s first venture into the automotive industry. Production will begin at a rate of about 5 cars a month, and might increase to 15 in the near future.
Since Toyota’s 8.7% stake purchase in Fuji Heavy Industries which makes Subaru cars, there has been on-going talks on the usage of Toyota’s hybrid engines in Subaru cars. But this proved to be difficult due to Subaru’s unique symmetrical all-wheel-drive drivetrain which could not be mounted to the engine easily.
