Soon it won’t be just Subaru who will be featuring a boosted boxer four under their hoods.
While Subaru may have long held the monopoly over the boxer engine, this will soon not be the case anymore. Such is as BYD has recently revealed that it too has developed a horizontally-opposed four-banger of its own, with it set to be the beating (or shall we say boxing) heart of its new PHEVs.
This 2.0-litre boxer was developed by BYD expressly for its e⁴ platform series of hybrids, with its primary purpose being to act as a generator for the electric motor. That said though, under certain conditions it can also deliver torque directly to the rear axle.
The BYD boxer is to be first deployed in the Yangwang U7 PHEV, where it resides in a compact “six-core” front module alongside a generator, two drive motors and two electromagnets that form part of its DiSus-Z suspension system. The boxer itself is said to churn out 272 horsepower and 380 Nm of torque, with that output then supplemented by four electric motors (one on each wheel) that delivers a combined output of 1,287 horsepower.
With such Chiron-rivalling power on tap, it is no surprise that the Yangwang U7 can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.9 seconds (or 4.1 seconds when the battery is low). Its PHEV powertrain meanwhile delivers a comprehensive 1,000-km range, with the complimentary 52.4 kWh battery alone offering a CLTC-rated pure-electric range of 200 km.
Moving back to the boxer engine itself, one of the reasons BYD went down this route was predominantly for packaging. The low-profile configuration — just 420 mm tall for the entire engine assembly — allows the Chinese automaker to preserve space in the frontal compartment, which not only helps retain the car’s sleek styling but also maintains that EV-signature low centre of gravity.
The BYD boxer engine uses a dry-sump lubrication system, a bespoke oil-circulation management architecture and a cooling setup tuned specifically for the flat layout. It apparently incorporates multiple NVH-reducing measures as well, such as a sandwich-style structure for the end caps and dual timing chains. According to BYD, under idle and light-load conditions, the engine’s noise level is only about 1 dB higher than that of the electric motors, making it almost imperceptible in everyday driving.
Incidentally, BYD also touts this as a “global first” for a flat engine integrated into an electrified production-car architecture, though it is worth noting that the Subaru Crosstrek (better known here as the XV) does indeed already offer a hybrid boxer option. In any case, it is somewhat ironic that the company perhaps best known for building cars that consume no fuel is now making an engine from a configuration best known for consuming a lot of oil…
