Europe's luxury icons embrace 4-bangers, hybrids, EVs
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So far it is just a trickle, but four-cylinder engines are making their way into European luxury vehicles in the United States.
Four-bangers have become available in the past 12 months in Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Land Rover products. And Jaguar, which has only V-8s on its three car lines, rolls out new four- and six-cylinder powerplants this fall.
Volvo begins switching to a new family of four-cylinder engines in the fall of 2013. Eventually, Volvo will phase out its five- and six-cylinder engines.
And the Europeans are beginning to challenge the Japanese dominance of the hybrid and electric market. BMW plans a 3-series hybrid and will update the 7-series hybrid.
Mercedes-Benz has E- and S-class hybrids and will launch additional plug-ins with the debut of the redesigned S class next year and the new-generation C class in 2014.
BMW will beat Mercedes-Benz to the market with the all-electric i3 in the fall of 2013. Mercedes launches its electric B class in 2014.
Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo were product-starved for a few years while Ford Motor Co. tried to unload them. Now they have foreign owners: Jaguar and Land Rover were bought by India's Tata Motors, and Volvo is in the hands of China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group. They are slowly rebuilding the brands with new vehicles and redesigns more essential for survival than electric and hybrid powerplants.
Jaguar is launching the F-Type roadster next year. A smaller sedan intended to compete with the BMW 3 series is still at least two years away.
Land Rover finally will replace its iconic flagship, the 12-year-old Range Rover, in early 2013.
Volvo will replace its 10-year-old XC90 crossover in 2014 when a new platform architecture debuts. Until then, it has to rely on the XC60 crossover and S60 sedan, which are still on a Ford platform.
Here are the product plans for the 2013-16 calendar years.
You can reach Diana T. Kurylko at dkurylko@crain.com. -- Follow Diana on 
