TOYOTA REVEAL THEIR NEW ‘THIRD GENERATION’ DIESEL ENGINES
18 May 2005 - Toyota

*New 2.2-litre four-cylinder engines to be the heart of growth in key market sectors

Toyota said at the reveal of their third generation common rail diesel engines that diesel is a major part of their mid-term growth strategy.

Currently Toyota is the world’s second largest vehicle manufacturer (behind GM) with annual global sales of 7.5 million vehicles This equates to one vehicle coming off their production lines every 4.2 seconds – every hour of every day.

Toyota is financially the world’s strongest vehicle manufacturer. Its value is in excess of General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler put together.

Speaking at the launch of the new four-cylinder 148bhp and 175bhp D-4D engines, Matt Harrison, marketing director of Toyota GB said, “The least powerful of these two engines will be seen first of all in additional models for the Toyota Avensis range. These go on sale in the UK from 1 July. The 175bhp unit will be introduced in the UK in 2006 and into other models such as the RAV4 and Lexus models in the future”.

“In the UK in every sector where diesel matters, our diesel mix lags someway behind the segment diesel mix. Put simply, in the key volume sectors we are achieving strong petrol sales but weak diesel ones. We must address this imbalance and by introducing the new 2.2-litre D-4D engine into the Avensis this is the first step in a two-year strategy to grow our share of diesel sales in the key market segments of Supermini, Lower Medium, Upper Medium, Off-Road and MPVs”.

Harrison added, “We are staggering the introduction of these engines because the growth of diesel sales in the UK’s Upper Medium segment over the last three years have been for models with mid-power 121-150bhp engines. Engines above 150bhp have consistently only accounted for around five per-cent of sales. With our current 2.0-litre D-4D 114bhp engine, which will continue in the Avensis line-up, we have only been able to compete in around one third of the upper medium diesel market. By introducing the 148bhp derivative it now gives us access to 95 per cent of the market opportunity”.

“We have decided to delay introducing the 175bhp engine until next year when it will deliver a real ‘halo’ effect for the Avensis range which will undergo minor styling and specification changes at the same time”.

Toyota GB says the overall diesel engine passenger car sales in the upper medium sector are now 258,000 units a year or 56 per cent of total segment sales. Overall diesel sales have grown 31 per cent in the sector since 2002.

Harrison said, “Our broad objective this year is to sell 24,000 Avensis models in the UK, a little less than last year. Next year we expect, even after the introduction of these diesel engines, to see sales of 22,000 units. The reducing numbers are due to the declining new car market sales in the UK. The Upper Medium sector is a very difficult because it has become fragmented. You have volume manufacturers at one end of it discounting their products with special price package fleet sales, which we will not compete with, at the other end you have BMW and Audi introducing premium brand models such as the 3 Series and A4”.
Toyota say that traditionally retail customers in this sector account for only 30 per cent of sales but Avensis attracts around a 35 per cent of retail buyers.

“We also limit our Avensis daily rental business to around 1,000 units each year to keep our residual values high and we expect the cars to retain at least 40 per cent of their new price over the traditional three year period -. just behind the new VW Passat”, said Harrison

He added, “Currently sales of Avensis models in the UK are 50 per-cent 5-Door Hatchbacks, but this number is reducing due to changes in customer preference. Tourers take 20 per cent but now demand for estates is increasing, as is the demand for saloons that currently account for 30 per cent of sales and these are increasing as well. Of the 35 per cent of petrol Avensis models we sell, 20 per cent of these are for 1.8-litre versions”.

Outlining the Avensis diesel model line up strategy Harrison said, “We will continue to offer the existing 2.0 D-4D engine on the entry T2 and volume selling T3 grades. The new 2.2 D—4D will be introduced for saloon and hatchback T3-S, T3-X, T4 and T Sprit grades and on all Tourer models”.

Prices for the new Avensis 2.2 D-4D models range from £18,145 to £22,145. This represents a £1,000 price premium over the Toyota 2.0 D-4D models. Because the 2.2-litre engine has a low CO2 rating, just 1 g/km more than the 2.0 D-4D unit it is the same company car tax band despite its significant increase in power. Insurance group ratings are just one grade higher that the equivalent 2.0 D-4D Avensis models, 9E or 10E, depending on the grade.

Toyota say the service maintenance costs over the industry standard 60,000 miles are 4.1 hours, the best in its class.

The two new diesel units are built at Toyota’s eighth European production centre, their second in Poland. The new factory built at a cost of £140 million created 950 new jobs. Production started in March this year and a full capacity of 180,000 engines annually will be achieved by 2007.

The Avensis is Toyota’s Flagship in Europe and it is built exclusively in Britain at their Burnaston factory. Capacity has been increased to 285,000 cars a year.

The new 2.2-litre D-4D engines are lightweight all aluminium with cast iron bore liners for durability. The block comes from the Toyota AZ family of aluminium petrol engines. For the 148bhp version a relatively low compression ratio of 16.8:1 is adopted to reduce noise, vibration, harshness and to reduce engine wear. For the 175bhp unit the compression ratio is reduced further to 15.8:1, the lowest in the world for a diesel engine. The larger engine also differs from the 148bhp unit by using piezoelectric fuel injectors that operate at twice the speed of conventional solenoid units. Each injector has ten nozzles and up to five multiple injections can take place during one engine cycle. This unit is also unique in having an injector positioned with the exhaust manifold. A burst of fuel is ignited to burn of waste exhaust emissions and particulates before they enter the exhaust gas recirculation process. This unit is also fitted with D-CAT (Diesel Clean Advanced Technology) catalyser to reduce exhaust emissions, including NOx and particulates, even further.

The 148bhp unit has a torque output of 310Nm from 2,000 to 3,200rpm. Fuel consumption during the combined cycle is 47.9mpg, CO2 156g/km with a Band D vehicle excise duty rating. Top speed is 130mph with a 0-62mph time of 9.3 seconds.

The 175bhp/400Nm engine, due in the UK in 2006, gives a top speed of 137mph with a 0-62mph acceleration time of 8.6 seconds. The combined cycle fuel consumption is 46.3mpg with a CO2 rating of 161 g/km.

A new six-speed, lightweight and compact transmission is also used for both engines. Under pressure from Toyota in Europe, the Japanese engineers are under pressure to design and make available an automatic transmission.

Miles Better News Agency

More News
  For May 2005
  From Toyota
  For Engines
  Driver247.com Home Page