Toyota developing new 2.0-litre engine for hybrid GR sports cars

Toyota is priming a new hybrid powertrain for its GR models, giving its sporting sub-brand a new lease of life in an era of strict emissions regulations.

This system will be based around a new turbocharged four-cylinder engine that's being developed by the Japanese car maker.

For the next generation of its sports cars, a 2.0-litre variant will be used. This is being proven in the mid-engined GR Yaris M Concept, with engineers stress-testing the prototype engine “to failure”. 

The new engine can support both plug-in hybrid and mild hybrid set-ups and features a shorter piston stroke than Toyota’s current engines, making it smaller and lighter.

This is important, because a hybrid element can be fitted with minimal weight penalty, suggested Hiroyuki Yamada, a GR engineer working on the project.

He added: “We can use hybrid for future cars [which use this engine]. We will use it in our motorsport activities in the future, because of emissions.

“This technology we create will we apply to both motorsport and passenger [car] engines. In the future, we want a more fuel-efficient engine [for GR cars].”

Technical details of the engine have yet to be disclosed by Toyota, but reports suggest that outputs will hit around 400bhp for road cars.

The potential of a second-generation combustion-engined GR Yaris - which currently draws power from a 276bhp 1.6-liter turbo triple – will be good news for Toyota sports car buyers in Europe, given that the current hot hatch has been sold in limited numbers, due to stringent emissions laws in both markets.

Toyota UK boss Simon Thompson told Autocar the GR brand is “is extremely important” to the UK market, because “people aspire to [own] those types of vehicles”.

“What the GR has done, from a halo point of view, looking into our brand, has been amazing in terms of the Yaris,” added Thompson.

He agreed that hybridisation of the line-up could potentially mean more allocation here. He views the addition of such a motorsport-derived trickle-down technology as “critical in terms of how we operate and support our brand”.

The plan to fit GR models with hybrid power has been long mooted by Toyota. In 2023, chief technology officer Hiroki Nakajima told Autocar: “Hybrid systems are always a good solution for environmental cars, not just for passenger cars but for sporty cars as well.”