BMW Blog Drives the New TwinPower Turbocharged Four Cylinder

From BMWBlog .com – To find out more interesting BMW news and stories, visit their site here.

During the BMW Innovation Day, our friends from BMW Blog got the chance to drive a BMW X1 equipped with the new 2.0 L four TwinPower Turbocharged Four Cylinder engine. BMW Blog thinks that this engine is really good and exceptionally light. Here is an excerpt of their review here:

It’s smooth, and while it doesn’t reach the same peak horsepower of the old inline six, it has more torque (and a much flatter torque curve) and it has more horsepower under 6000 RPM than the six. Where the N52B30 outdoes the new four is in that last 1000 RPM of the engines rev range, 6000 – 7000 RPM. And engines on street cars don’t really spend that much time in the upper rev range.

The X1 28i we were unleashed on was equipped with a six speed manual and auto stop/start (which I found a bit difficult to get used to – after forty years of driving manual transmissions, this was the first time,
since I owned a Fiat, that the engine died when I took it out of gear at a stop).

The driving showed that BMW has hit its marks with this engine. It has immediate thrust, it is silky smooth at idle, and has a pleasant aural profile, sporty but not overly aggressive. Compared to the six, the four may prove to be more tractable in everyday traffic thanks to the fat, flat torque curve.

When you look at the numbers, yes the new four has less peak horsepower than the six, but everywhere else it trumps the six. It has more torque (and much more torque earlier in the rev band), it gets better fuel economy (16% better), and is quicker to 100 km/h from a standstill (6.1 seconds versus the six’s 6.8 seconds).

Quite impressive and it bodes well for the other members of the engine family.

Read More from BMW Blog