Updated Land Rover Discovery Sport revealed

Land Rover Australia has confirmed a new Ingenium turbo-diesel engine will head a line of improvements for the updated Discovery Sport due later this year.

As part of a raft of tweaks to its mid-size SUV, the British manufacturer has done away with outgoing model’s 2.2-litre cast-iron engine and replaced it with an efficient 2.0-litre, all-aluminium four-cylinder that weighs some 24kg less and brings claimed fuel consumption down to 5.3L/100km combined, an 11.5 per cent improvement in efficiency.

The oil-burner is the same as that found in the Range Rover Evoque and features a double overhead camshaft cylinder-head design, four valves per cylinder, variable camshaft timing on the exhaust side of the head and twin balance shafts for overall refinement.

It makes 110kW of power and 380Nm of torque, endowing TD4 150 models with a 0-100km/h time of 10.3 seconds – the same as the predecessor. The more power Td4 180 variant creates 132kW and 430Nm, affording an 8.9 second sprint to triple figures.

The Ingenium engine is matched to a nine-speed automatic transmission and fitted with steering column-mounted paddle shifters. Service intervals for the new Ingenium diesel are improved against the outgoing DW12 powertrain from 26,000km/12-month intervals to 34,000km/24-month intervals.

In addition, Jaguar Land Rover will use the updated Discovery Sport to roll out the latest version of its InControl Touch Pro infortainment system, complete with a larger 10.2-inch screen, along with an updated Meridian digital sound system.

As well as the new larger touch-screen, Land Rover has added what’s claimed to be the world’s first Bluetooth tracking device to an infotainment system that can help find the owner’s property like missing bags, wallets, keys and anything else you attach a small tile-shaped tag to.

The new ‘Tile’ tech works using by locating the attached tag and then offering on-screen directions to their last known location. If items are lost inside the cabin the tags themselves can sound a 90-decibel alarm to help locate them.

Lane Keep Assist, which uses a forward-facing camera to find lane markings and keep the car between them, will also be available. The same function will also use steering angle data to monitor and analyse driver fatigue under a Driver Condition Monitoring function.

For off-road enthusiasts, Land Rover is debuting a manually-selectable driving mode, Low Terrain Launch, for added traction on low-friction surfaces.

The changes are rounded out by cosmetic tweaks including the option of a new Black Pack, which adds bespoke trim to HSE and HSE Luxury models.

The 2017 Land Rover Discovery Sport will arrive in dealerships from October, priced from $56,355 (plus on-road costs).