The recently agreed alliance between Jaguar Land Rover and BMW is set to be extended to include internal combustion engines, a source with knowledge of recent high-level discussions between the two car makers has told Autocar.
The two firms initially agreed to work together on the development of electrified powertrains, but according to sources they have now agreed terms on what is described as a “more far-reaching deal involving petrol, diesel and hybridised drivelines” for a wide range of models.
According to Autocar’s sources, BMW is to supply Jaguar Land Rover with internal combustion engines, including in-line four- and six-cylinder units “both with and without electrically-assisted hybrid functions”.
The move is said to be aimed at allowing Jaguar Land Rover to reduce its on-going investment in petrol, diesel and hybrid drivelines and instead focus its research and development spending on the electric drivelines in partnership with BMW.
For BMW the deal safeguards existing research and development, procurement and production operations by adding volume beyond its own brands, BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce.
News of the internal combustion engine deal being forged by Jaguar Land Rover and BMW comes at a time when regulatory authorities in key global markets are raising emission standards with particular focus on CO2 and NOx levels to combat air pollution. Thus raising the level of spending required to engineer petrol, diesel and hybrid drivelines.
By joining forces on both electric and internal combustion engine drivelines, Jaguar Land Rover and BMW hope to reap the rewards of increased economies of scale while sharing development costs to remain competitive.
Last month the two companies announced they would jointly invest in research and development, engineering and procurement of drivelines for volume production electric cars.
Read more
Jaguar Land Rover and BMW join forces to develop electrified vehicles
Join the debate
Add your comment
BMW will spell disaster for JLR
The view that BMWs are reliable and bulletproof is based on their cars from the 80s and 90s, when they were genuinely robust, engineered thorougly and felt like a premium car to justify their prices. Nowadays the reliability of BMWs is simply awful (as is the case with all the German marques). It's as if they're too busy chasing sales volumes, outdoing each other and foucing on filling every conceivable class and niche of car possible that build quality has been forgotten. And because of that, it's very worrying times for JLR as their reputation may suffer through this alliance with BMW, with BMW's poor engine reliablity. I just hope that this alliance doesn't develop in to something more indepth where platforms and common components are shared which are BMW sourced because Jaguar and Land Rover's reputation for class, reliability and desirability will suddenly drop. It took a long time for Land Rover to shake off their poor reliability when they used BMW engines.
@ roadster
....Impossible for LR's reputation for reliability to drop any further roadster, so I wouldnt worry about that!
Confused by this
Confused by this
JLR don't need 4 and 6 cylinder engines, for better or worse they've invested in a new family of engines and a brand new factory to build them in.
I suspect
it may also be to replace the aging V6 PSA/Ford diesels JLR currently use, seeing as JLR are ditching its V6 (Ford) petrol engines in favour of its own i6 Ingenium, it makes sense to have an inline 6 diesel as well, and BMW do produce some of the best.