Recently, Toyota announced a major investment of $383 million in the development and production of a new 4-cylinder engine, which will become the main power source for Toyota and Lexus. Under the current trend of energy conservation and carbon reduction, what is Toyota's intention to invest in a 4-cylinder internal combustion engine? Where is Toyota's 6-cylinder engine, which is heavily used in North America? This new 4-cylinder engine, can we Chinese consumers have the honor to experience it?
As a small island country, Japan's lack of various resources has also made automobile manufacturing small and energy-efficient. Therefore, Toyota has been selling four-cylinder models in the Japanese market for a long time.
Does Toyota have a 6-cylinder engine? Yes, but only in first-class models. Including for a long time before World War II, subject to technological developments, Toyota's 6-cylinder engines existed in the form of in-line 6-cylinders. The last in-line 6-cylinder engine they produced was the 1FZ-FE 4.5L self-priming on the LC100, with a maximum power of 179 kW, but for off-road vehicles, the high torque of 407 N·m was enough.
However, in the North American market, which advocates large displacement and multiple cylinder counts, Toyota has also come up with large-displacement self-priming models represented by the V6 and V8. So Toyota developed the V6 engine quite late, and their first V6 engine series was the VZ series, which opened in 1987, with displacement ranging from 2.0L to 3.5L, which was the first time in Toyota's history that a V6 engine was used. It is not an exaggeration to say that this engine was developed specifically for the North American market, because toyota's two major sales kings in North America at that time, Camry and Lexus ES, used 2VZ and 3VZ engines, and the two were slightly different in displacement.
However, a major feature of the VZ engine is the extremely strong low-to-medium rpm torque brought by the small angle DOHC cylinder head structure, which allows the VZ series engines to be supplied more to the Toyota family's SUVs and pickup models. The Hilux, which you often see in the last 10 minutes of the newscast, as well as SUV models such as the Prado and 4Runner, are equipped with VZ series engines, thanks to the strong low-speed torque and excellent reliability, the VZ series engine has been the darling of Toyota's non-load-bearing body off-road models, until 2004 when it was announced.
After the VZ engine, the MZ series engine took over the position of Toyota's main V6 engine. But rather than saying that MZ is a descendant of VZ, MZ and VZ are two V6 engine series built by Toyota for different product positioning in the same period. Aluminium cylinder heads, cylinder blocks, lighter accessories and multi-point injection technology all represent a greater focus on efficiency and production costs for MZ engines. Therefore, the second generation of Lexus ES, as well as the same period of Camry, Xena, Asian Dragon can be seen in the MZ series of engines. Also because of the engine performance orientation, the MZ series engines were not equipped with the Toyota family's off-road vehicles, but became the favorite of highlander and Lexus RX.
But for Chinese users, the most familiar Toyota V6 engine is the GR series after the MZ series. The GR series engine is arguably Toyota's most famous V6 engine series, and as the co-successor to the VZ and MZ series, it is widely used in Toyota's mid-to-high-end models. From off-road old cattle such as FJ Cruiser and Hirax, to luxury models such as Elfa and Lexus LS, and then to minibuses such as Coaster, GR engines can be seen.
As for the GR engine that is most closely related to Chinese users, it should be the 3GR and 5GR equipped by Crown and Ruizhi. The first time Chinese consumers have come into contact with high-horsepower rear-drive vehicles, most of them are Ruizhi 2.5L models with 5GR engines. At that time, because of the strong power of the rear drive and V6, the Ruizhi 2.5L became the first choice for many young people to buy a car, so that there was a "Ah Zhen, I bought Ruizhi" such a stem. However, when Ruizhi was first launched, it was not equipped with an electronic stabilization program, and many car owners drove such a high-horsepower rear-drive for the first time, many Ruizhi owners experienced the first crash in their lives. At that time, in the repair shop of FAW Toyota, there was often a large number of sharp spirits waiting for repairs.
In addition, the 4.0-liter 1GR V6 engine and the 3.5-liter 7GR V6 engine are also old friends of Chinese consumers, and these two engines are widely used in Prado's high-end models. But in the Chinese market, the V6 engine has never been the main model. You look at the best-selling Camry in the country at the time, the 2.0L and 2.4L engines were both inline 4-cylinder engines of the AR series.
By the last generation of domestic crowns, the engine had long since become a 2.0T 4-cylinder 8AR, and the domestic GR series V6 engine disappeared after the production of Ruizhi and Prado. However, in North America on the other side of the ocean, gr series engines are still widely used, including Camry, Asian Dragon, which are popular 4-cylinder models in the Chinese market, and the North American market is still the V6 model of the GR series as the main force, which shows that American consumers love the V6 engine.
However, in recent years, oil prices have soared, governments have become more stringent in their emissions restrictions, and V6 engines with larger emissions have entered the phase of obsolescence. For Toyota, the small engine row quantification has fully begun in the TNGA era.
First, the TNGA series engines eliminated the V8 engines since the UZ series and ur series, replacing them with V35A-FTS twin-turbo V6 engines. The current top-of-the-line engine in the TNGA series was first introduced on the Lexus LS/LC released in 2017, and later on the Toyota Land Cruiser (LC300) and the new-generation Lexus LX. The maximum power of the 415PS, and the maximum torque of 650N·m, as well as better fuel economy, make it enough to replace the UR Series V8 engine with a displacement nearly 1 liter larger than it.
In recent years, major manufacturers have replaced the larger V6 engine with a 2.0T engine, and Toyota has also tried this in the Chinese market. The Highlander (third generation) 8AR-FTS is the only mass-produced 2.0T in the Toyota family. Although this engine was developed by Yamaha, its maximum power of 180 kW and a maximum torque of 350 N·m, in a group of 2.0T engines, its power performance is not so good, not enough to replace the GR series V6 engine with a maximum power of 232 kW and a maximum torque of 380 N·m in the US market.
But the advent of the T24A engine changed everything.
The 2.4-liter turbocharged engine first appeared on the new generation of Lexus NX350 released last year, and the 350 code number in previous Lexus products generally represented models with 3.5L V6 engines. This also means that the T24A engine is about to completely replace the old GR series V6 engine. In order to complete the replacement of the engine product line, it is also reasonable for Toyota to invest in a 4-cylinder engine production line.
Let's see what makes this T24A engine powerful: the maximum power is 205kW, which is slightly smaller than the 2GR engine, but the maximum torque is as high as 430N·m, which is a full crush compared to the V6 engine. The engine compression ratio is as high as 11.0:1, which is a fairly high compression ratio for a turbocharged engine. The fuel injection system uses the Toyota D-4ST dual injection system, which uses direct injection when requesting large power and manifold injection at low load, which not only ensures power performance, but also has a good fuel economy.
The Lexus NX350, equipped with this engine, can achieve a zero-hundred-hundred acceleration of 6.8s with the new Direct-Shift 8AT gearbox, which is half a second faster than the previous generation of NX300 equipped with an 8AR engine. In this way, the V6 engine really does not need to exist.
In addition to the T24A of the NX350, Toyota said that there is a new 4-cylinder engine that will be produced in the United States, but at present they have not disclosed any information about this engine, so we can only look for answers in the existing Toyota/Lexus product line.
In the Lexus product line, in addition to the V6 engine represented by the 350, there is also a model code that uses the V6 engine, that is, the 450h. Previously, both the RX450h and GS450h used 2GR-FXS's 3.5L V6 engines, so after the GR series engines were retired, finding new engines for them became the most important issue. There is news that the new generation of RX450h is likely to use a turbocharged hybrid special engine based on the T24A engine, and if the engine finally lands, it will be an important addition to Lexus' high-end product line.
But it is a pity that this T24A engine, which combines power and efficiency, I think the possibility of meeting with us Chinese consumers is very small.
On the one hand, the mainstream consumers of Toyota and Lexus in China have far higher reliability requirements for vehicles than for vehicle dynamics. How to understand this sentence, most people who buy Toyota and Lexus, most only require it to be powerful enough, easy to drive, fuel-efficient, durable. According to this standard, the A25 series engine, which has been widely used at present, is enough, and the addition of a high-power pure fuel model not only does not buy it by the target consumer group, but also a drag on its own fuel consumption points.
The other is the NVH performance of this engine. According to user feedback currently in the North American market, the NX350 with this engine is the most pronounced engine noise and vibration among Toyota and Lexus TNGA models. The sound quality of this engine during driving is very noisy, even louder than the engine of the Highlander 2.5L dual engine model, and it is obvious that this NVH performance does not meet the Lexus brand standard and tonality.
So Lexus is also very clever, introducing the NX250, which is relatively less powerful but less fuel-efficient, in the Chinese market, which is equipped with the same A25A-FKS 2.5L engine and UA80E Direct-Shift 8AT transmission as the Camry 2.5L pure fuel model.
To sum up, Toyota's large-scale investment in the 4-cylinder engine is mainly to replace the 6-cylinder engine that currently has a very large market share in North America, which will not only further reduce the overall fuel consumption level of the Toyota Group in North America, but also give full play to the integration advantages of TNGA and further reduce costs. However, these have little to do with Chinese consumers, because in China, whether it is Toyota or Lexus, the 4-cylinder engine has long been in the position of the main engine type. What's more, in China, everyone doesn't like a Lexus engine called a tractor.