Ford's soon-to-be-China owned brand ,Volvo, is expanding its range of gasoline engines with the presentation of the all new 2.0 liter GTDi (Gasoline Turbocharged Direct Injection) that will initially find its way under the hood of the S80 sedan, V70 estate and XC60 compact SUV models.

Even though Volvo did not mention anything about Ford, it is suspected that the new four-cylinder unit that combines turbocharging technology and direct injection with twin variable camshafts, is either the same engine or heavily based on Ford's new 2.0-liter EcoBoost engine that will be used on several cars including the European Mondeo and Galaxy.

Volvo said that the new 2.0 GTDi petrol engine produces an output of 203 horsepower and 300Nm of peak torque that is sustained from 1750 rpm all the way up to 4,000 rpm. The engine will be offered in combination with Volvo's automatic six-speed Powershift transmission or a six-speed manual gearbox.

With this new engine and the six-speed manual gearbox, the S80 sedan accelerates from zero to 100km/h (62mph) in 7.9 seconds while returning a combined fuel consumption of 7.9 lt /100km. The performance figures of this new engine in other applications are shown in the table below:

The new 2.0 GTDi engine is being launched initially on markets that offer tax incentives for engines below two liters in displacement including South-East Asia, the Netherlands, China and Japan. Introduction in other countries/regions will follow later in the year.

With this new engine, the S80 will be a worthy competitor to the Benz E200 CGI, BMW 520i. If I have the dough, I would pick the S80 over the 2 continental stalwarts as it is less commonly found on the Singapore road!