Following up on news that the recently announced second Lexus GS hybrid will use a V6 engine, Just-Auto has a revealing interview with Lexus GS chief engineer Yoshihiko Kanamori — here’s a quote:
Glenn Brooks: The Infiniti M offers not only a petrol hybrid but also a diesel in European markets. And now Mercedes-Benz has a diesel-hybrid E-Class. When should we expect a GS diesel or diesel hybrid?
Yoshihiko Kanamori: This time we didn’t develop a diesel or diesel hybrid. Diesel engines are expensive (to develop).
GB: And yet the majority of cars in the European E-premium segment are powered by four-cylinder diesel engines.
YK: We can’t use a four-cylinder engine easily in the GS and anyway, for NVH, a four-cylinder diesel is not ideal. And so what we offer our customers is a range of V6 petrol engines, with the hybrid as the top engine.
GB: That suggests there will be another engine to come for the GS.
YK: Yes, we have a lower displacement hybrid. It will come to European markets in the second half of 2013.
This isn’t the definitive statement that we saw in Kanamori-san’s interview with Autocar, but it does back up the idea that this new lower displacement GS hybrid will use a V6 engine.
(Recommend reading the rest of the interview as well — plenty of additional insight on the development of the fourth-generation GS.)
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