Straight-six diesel grunt for Hyundai pick-up

The powerful, clean-running new inline six-cylinder diesel that will debut in the new Genesis GV80 luxury SUV looks set to also power Hyundai’s first ute and its Kia cousin, both of which could appear by the end of next year.

During the launch of the first Genesis SUV in Korea this week, Hyundai’s head of R&D, Albert Biermann, was asked about the potential for the engine in applications other than the GV80 – including more affordable Hyundai-branded models.

“This engine... we can have so many applications,” he said. “We make also commercial vehicles and so on, so this engine will be out there for quite some time.”

That certainly hints that the new diesel straight-six could find its way into top-shelf variants of the upcoming Hyundai and Kia utes, to compete with range-topping variants of the Volkswagen Amarok and Mercedes-Benz X-Class, presuming the latter remains in production.

But when asked directly whether the engine will be fitted to models without a Genesis badge, Biermann back-pedalled.

“We have not finally decided yet,” he replied, which was hardly an unequivocal ‘no’. It’s at the very least a subject for discussion with the Hyundai Group.

In the big Genesis GV80, which goes on sale here around mid-2020, the 3.0-litre turbo-diesel produces a healthy 204kW and a lusty 588Nm of torque, putting it about par with BMW’s architecturally similar engine, which makes 195kW/620Nm in the X5 30d.

More importantly, it out-powers and out-torques both the 190kW/550Nm X 350d and the 180kW/550Nm Amarok V6, which produces up to 200kW/580Nm.

With a standard eight-speed automatic transmission in the GV80, it consumed 7.5L/100km during our drive out of Seoul, which is also competitive with the X5 diesel six and less than we routinely see in the Amarok V6 and X 350d.

Biermann says Hyundai chose to develop an inline diesel six because its inherent refinement, and the longitudinal packaging of the long engine in the GV80 posed no great challenge, just as it wouldn’t in a large commercial vehicle.

“It just makes the smoothest power,” he told carsales after the formal presentation of the new SUV. That was key to the choice of engine, and the new architecture for the GV80 [which will also underpin the next-generation G80 sedan] was specifically developed with the long six in mind.

“We developed the whole car from the beginning. The new platform, the ‘M3’ platform, was already considered with that engine,” Biermann said.

Hyundai has presumably invested a lot in this new engine and will want to see a significant return on that investment. To do so will require spreading the engine’s development costs across the broadest range of applications, which also explains why the diesel six has been developed for a clean-diesel future.

That much is clear from Biermann’s confirmation that the GV80 will be sold in Europe with the diesel six option.

“Of course [it will]; this is the latest European emissions spec. This is Euro 6 for Step II. That is a very clean diesel.”

Biermann rejected any suggestion that diesel is no longer viable in the EU.

“There was a time, two years ago, when everybody was saying ‘diesel is over’, but now you have people saying: ‘Hey, with this new diesel technology, the air that comes from the tailpipe is cleaner than the air [the engine] sucks in, right?’

“It is like that, with the next level, so will it die? Will it not die? Future will tell.

“But we are ready; we have the latest and greatest diesel technology – and we have hybrids and plug-ins and 48-volts [mild-hybrids] and battery-electric and fuel-cell. We are ready for anything.”

Biermann said the new engine is compatible with hybrid-drive, although he wouldn’t elaborate further.

Since Head of Genesis William Lee has expressly stated that Genesis will ‘skip’ hybrids in favour of full battery-electric vehicles and Biermann himself says that Genesis will eventually market fuel-cell vehicles, hybrid compatibility for the diesel six doesn’t make sense in the Genesis context alone.

All the more reason for engineering the Hyundai ute – and potentially the large ladder-frame SUV we know Hyundai is also planning – to accept the new diesel engine, since in hybrid form they would go head-to-head with the hybrid HiLux and hybrid LandCruiser models promised by Toyota.