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Pivi Pro Jaguar Land Rover Infotainment Review | A massive improvement

Infotainment systems in Jaguar Land Rover products have irked us for a long while. They’re generally a good step — or several — behind other luxury automakers' infotainment systems in terms of features and looks. But the big problem has always been their functionality. Even right out of the gate, they exhibited an undue amount of lag and general bugginess. Pivi Pro is supposed to change all of that. ItÂ’s JLRÂ’s completely new-from-the-ground-up infotainment system that is quickly spreading across the companyÂ’s range of products. It features a new screen size and layout. Plus, the software itÂ’s running is vastly different from what we saw previously. Our Byron Hurd got a first taste of it with a number of JLR products in a short period of time and found it to be a big improvement. Now, weÂ’ve had a new Land Rover Discovery in the garage for a longer period to fully suss out the system. Will it hold up? Watch the video above for a quick tour, and keep reading for some more detailed thoughts. Before diving in too deep, you should know off the top that Pivi Pro is a massive improvement over JLR infotainment systems of old. There are still some issues, but the new systemÂ’s performance is exponentially better than what itÂ’s replacing. This is partly thanks to it now running off its own backup battery. This allows the whole system to load immediately upon startup, ensuring that you arenÂ’t sitting and waiting for items to populate after you press the start button.  The new 11.4-inch screen this software plays on is splendid to both look at and touch. ItÂ’s a super-high-resolution panel, and it takes to our inputs quickly and without protest. The new UI layout makes things easier and prettier, too. All of your important items are tucked into a panel on the left, making them super easy to find and select. Plus, a sticky “home” button means you can always find your way out of menus when youÂ’re done diving around. We dig the three-panel home screen and its minimalist style, but for those who might favor maximum functionality over a pretty home screen, you can replace this with rows of app icons. For those wanting to use their phones, there is indeed an in-car WiFi data plan available to buy. Plus, JLR newly allows you to connect two devices via Bluetooth instead of just one. Both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are nicely integrated with this new system.

Jaguar Land Rover considering Mexican plant

Jaguar Land Rover has been expanding its production out of the UK and into overseas markets, and according to the latest word from Bloomberg, the British automaker is considering spending more than half a billion dollars to build a new assembly plant somewhere in Mexico. Since the Range Rover Sport and Evoque are two of the company's top sellers in the US, those would reportedly be the most likely to be manufactured at the Mexican plant, although Jaguars could follow as well. The automaker was previously said to be leaning towards a location in the Southern US, and while it could conceivably proceed with plans for both, it would be more likely to go with one or the other. State and local authorities below the Mason-Dixon line have been soliciting the business with various incentives, but lower labor costs South of the Border could prove more attractive to JLR and its parent company Tata. It wouldn't be the first, after all. Over the past month alone, General Motors committed to building the next Chevy Cruze in Mexico, Toyota did the same with the Corolla, Hyundai was reported to be considering a similar step, and Ford announced two new plants in the country amounting to a $2.5-billion investment. Luxury automakers like Audi, BMW and Mercedes have also been delving into Mexican production as well, blazing a path that JLR could potentially follow. The British automaker recently opened a plant in China and another in Brazil, while investing in additional facilities in the UK as well.

Driving JLR Classic's factory-restored Jaguar Reborn E-Type

COVENTRY, England – Moviegoers of a certain age will likely draw an association between the flag-emblazoned E-type “Shaguar” driven by Austin Powers and the carÂ’s image as an icon of Swinging-Sixties cool. For sure, the Brits cling to this era, recalling a time when everyone from The Beatles to the nationÂ’s car manufacturers were successfully exporting English swagger to the world. As the 60th anniversary of the E-typeÂ’s first appearance in 1961 approaches, attention is again focused on this golden age for British automotive engineering and JaguarÂ’s increasingly industrialized approach to leveraging its heritage. That takes the form of an impressive modern facility on the outskirts of the brandÂ’s hometown, where classic Land Rover, Range Rover and Jaguar vehicles are “Reborn” in nut-and-bolt factory restorations. This isnÂ’t a few old hands turning spanners in a dusty corner of the main factory — instead customers can go direct to Jaguar Land Rover Classic Works, order the Reborn vehicle of their dreams and sit patiently for the spectacular return on their considerable investment. In the case of the Reborn E-type driven here, that starts at around $400,000, though that figure can rise considerably if youÂ’re fussy about the vintage of the original car and want one based on a more sought-after early model. For the real fanboys Jaguar is even offering Drivsix matched pairs of restored E-type 60 Editions to celebrate the coupe and roadster that were famously driven direct from the factory to the Geneva unveiling just in time for Jaguar founder Sir William Lyons to reveal it to the world. That even Enzo Ferrari was moved to acknowledge its beauty adds to the romance of that moment, and explains why Jaguar is so keen to celebrate it. But can the Reborn E-type do justice to such myth and legend? And is factory original really preferable to the restomods built by independents like Eagle? Wheel time in a gorgeous Reborn 1965 4.2 Fixed-Head Coupe on an authentically grey and overcast English day is my chance to find out. The E-type may have earned EnzoÂ’s respect for its looks but, ever the wily engineer, he will likely have been paying closer scrutiny to what was under those slinky panels. Jaguar had demonstrated it could beat the worldÂ’s best in sports car racing with multiple Le Mans wins in the 1950s. As the new decade dawned, it looked to have ambitions to do the same in showrooms with a product that made MaranelloÂ’s finest seem like old tech.