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Toyota Having High Expectations From New BMW Diesel to Boost Sales in Europe

Toyota, which is now the world’s biggest hybrid vehicle seller, is currently turning its attention to customers that prefer the good ol’ oil burner instead going electric.
2014 Toyota Verso 1 photo
Photo: Toyota
And since the company was busy making its gasoline-electric powertrains more and more efficient, it went to BMW and took one of their diesel units to adapt for its new models.

The diesel engine is a 1.6-liter unit coming from BMW’s factory in Steyr, Austria, and it received several adjustments to fit in Toyota’s vehicles, such as mounting points, intake, cooling and fuel feeding systems. However, the engine got some improvement tweaks, like a new ECU, dual-mass flywheel, drive shaft and recalibrated gearboxes.

The new 1.6-liter D-4D engine makes 110 bhp, which is 14 less than the old 2-liter one it will replace, but it’s more responsive, uses less fuel and emits less CO2.

The first vehicle in Toyota’s range to adopt the new diesel unit is the 2014 Verso compact minivan, which was offered with a 2- and 2.2-liter diesel engines. The 2-liter will be dropped from the range, thus making the Verso more competitive against its main rivals - the 1.6 Citroen C4 Picasso, 1.5 Renault Scenic, 1.6 Volkswagen Touran and 1.6 Ford C-Max.

Toyota hopes this will boost sales and expects to give away around 44,000 Versos in Europe this year, comparing to the 39,320 units from last year, with regions including Russia and Turkey.

Despite the big hybrid offer, diesels are still preferred by new car buyers, especially big corporations with huge vehicle fleets.
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