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2019 Jaguar XJ50 is a supercharged birthday present

Jaguar is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its elegant luxury sedan, the XJ, with a stylish and supercharged new model called the XJ50. This nod to eight generations of XJ comes in long-wheelbase format and is powered by either a 340-horsepower supercharged V6, or snarling 470-hp supercharged V8. While the V6 model is available with a choice of rear- or all-wheel drive, the more powerful V8 is offered only in rear-wheel drive form. Revealed for the first time at the 2018 Beijing Motor Show, the XJ50 is visually separated by the standard XJ sedan by having unique front and rear bumpers, a gloss black grille, special badges on the side vents, along with 20-inch alloy wheels with a gloss black diamond turned finish. Four colors will be available: Rosello Red, Santorini Black, Fuji White, and Loire Blue. How something along the lines of British Racing Green didn't make the cut remains a marketing mystery, however. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The XJ50 cabin is fitted with unique touches like an XJ50 logo on the front center armrest, illuminated XJ50-branded treadplates, diamond-quilted seats with the Jaguar leaper logo on the headrests, along with metal pedals and aluminum shift paddles mounted on the steering wheel. "This is a car worth celebrating and the XJ50 pays homage to a giant within the Jaguar brand that we believe is one of the world's most stylish sporting saloons," said Ian Callum, Jaguar Director of Design. While only the most jaded automotive Grinch wouldn't enjoy a birthday celebration -- really, who doesn't like cake with their illuminated treadplates(?) -- there's a sense the XJ50 marks the end of the road for the brand's long-serving luxury sedan. Rumors persist that the XJ will soon migrate to an all-electric platform, to compete directly against cars like the Tesla Model S and upcoming Porsche Mission E. Jaguar did not release an exact price of the 2019 XJ50, though a long-wheelbase XJ with the 340-hp V6 and rear-wheel drive carries a starting price of approximately $84,500.Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Beijing Motor Show Jaguar Luxury Sedan jaguar xj

Child cobalt miners: Automakers pledge ethical minerals sourcing for EVs

BERLIN - Leading carmakers including Volkswagen and Toyota pledged on Wednesday to uphold ethical and socially responsible standards in their purchases of minerals for an expected boom in electric vehicle production. Demand for minerals such as cobalt, graphite and lithium is forecast to soar in the coming years as governments crack down on vehicle pollution and carmakers step up their investments in electric models. To cover its plans for more than 80 new models by 2025, Volkswagen alone is looking for partners in China, Europe and North America to provide battery cells and related technology worth more than 50 billion euros ($59 billion). Talks with major cobalt producers, including Glencore, at VW's Wolfsburg headquarters last week ended without a deal. More than half of the world's cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country racked by political instability and legal opacity, and where child labor is used in mines. On Wednesday, a group of 10 leading passenger-car and truck manufacturers announced an initiative to jointly identify and address ethical, environmental, human and labor rights issues in raw materials sourcing. The partnership dubbed "Drive Sustainability" consists of VW, Toyota Motor Europe, Ford, Daimler, BMW, Honda, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo Cars and truckmakers Scania and Volvo. The alliance "will assess the risks posed by the top raw materials (such as mica, cobalt, rubber and leather) in the automotive sector," said Stefan Crets of the CSR Europe business network. "This will allow Drive Sustainability to identify the most impactful activities to pursue" to address issues within the supply chain.Reporting by Andreas Cremer.Related Video: Image Credit: Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images Green BMW Ford Honda Jaguar Land Rover Mercedes-Benz Automakers Toyota Volkswagen Volvo Green Automakers Green Culture Electric Scania ethics mining

Jaguar Land Rover building new R&D center for hybrids, EVs, autonomous cars

The success of Jaguar Land Rover in recent years has largely been down to a resurgent product lineup, but a recent move into the research and development will see the British-based, Indian-owned brands take the fight to its German rivals more aggressively than ever before.
JLR is investing 50 million pounds ($80,345,000, as of this writing) in a joint R&D center in central England. The move will more than triple its staff dedicated to research, from 150 to 500, with Wolfgang Epple, JLR's Director of Research and Technology telling Automotive News Europe, "In order to play among the big animals in automotive and to be anchored in the mind of customers you have to have offered something unique, to be first in market. We want to be one of the key premier automotive manufacturers."
Jaguar Land Rover's 50-million-pound contribution represents more than half of the 94-million-pound tab, on the so-called National Automotive Innovation Campus. Based at Warwick University, Tata's European Technical Center, Warwick Manufacturing Group and the Higher Education Funding Council, an agency of the British government, are all chipping in for the facility.