Land Rover won't share its tech

The Active Driveline system developed jointly by Land Rover and GKN Driveline delivers the Range Rover Evoque a marketplace advantage in the same vein as a knockout punch.

Videos of the sophisticated system in action clearly demonstrate its effectiveness on two differing road surfaces – up against an Evoque with only a standard driveline system.

So it's not altogether surprising that Land Rover would not want its rivals to avail themselves of that same advance, as Murray Dietsch, the company's Director of Programmes, explained to motoring.com.au in Frankfurt for the 2013 motor show. On-selling the technology is right off the manufacturer's agenda.

"No, we wouldn't do that. It's something that we would hold to ourselves. There are eight patents on just the control system itself," Dietsch explained.

"Brand-defining technology like Active Driveline is not something that we would want to share.

"It has taken an enormous amount of time and effort to get this to the level that it's at; we don't see other people being able to do this sort of thing."

Dietsch goes on to explain why the system has gone through such an intensive gestation.

"[It's] the control system around making what is a rear drive unit – a fairly simple piece of kit that changes the direction of rotation... with two clutch packs on the side – before you do all the driveline-disconnect stuff, you've got to turn all that into responding [like] a normal differential.

"That's taken a load of time to get all that working. Imagine all the permutations and combinations – just in general driving – that a normal differential delivers. The clutches have got to work in a way that mimics all of that in normal driving. It's been that that's come along in leaps and bounds."

Surely then Land Rover could – within reason – charge a healthy figure for other companies to license the technology. Dietsch suggests rather that any amount charged could not compare with the commercial value of the system packaged in cars sold in consequently larger numbers.

"If this is the technology that sells us another 50,000 vehicles, we'll make more out of the 50,000 vehicles than selling the technology to somebody...

It's not just the added prospective sales lost, Dietsch continues, but the forecast expected sales lost once your rivals start eroding your current sales base.

"The reality is that if you're doing that, then effectively giving up those sorts of things, you're really inviting the competition to come in and eat your own lunch..." he said.

Clearly Active Driveline is some hot stuff, but when can we expect to see it in other Land Rover applications?

"We wouldn't just stop at Evoque; we intend to use it as a platform of technology across our east/west architectures..." Dietsch says.

But what about in modified form for north/south (longitudinal) engine applications like the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport?

"We've tailored this just for east/west, but the concept of it would be applicable to other platforms..." Dietsch responds.

"That type of technology can be used in north/south as well, presumably scaleable to clutch packs and the like. At this stage, the plan is Evoque and potentially any future east/west [model] off this platform or architecture.”

There's only one other east/west engine application in the Land Rover range we know of.

"[There are] No specific plans at the moment for Freelander to take this technology," says Dietsch, begging the question of what 'any future' platform or architecture would be.

One reason Active Driveline will probably trickle down through the Land Rover range – replacing the current Haldex-based systems – is that the new development has the potential to be cheaper from a manufacturing perspective.

"In terms of like for like, it's a little bit more expensive than Haldex," explains Dietsch, "but things will change over time... as the technology becomes more used and more available...

"It's not staggeringly more expensive than what's on the existing [model]."

Does it lend itself to hybrid-drive systems?

"It would... the fact of the matter is if you can disconnect a number of the driven wheels you can reduce a lot of the losses in there. It's not specifically a one-to-one connection between hybridisation and using something like this, but this is a clear benefit.

"Hybridisation is obviously the next step. It would seem odd that if you had a hybrid version of this not to use this type of thing, but the two are not synonymous..."

Read the latest news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site...

Don't forget to register to comment on this article.