2002 Jaguar X-type Base Sedan 4-door 2.5l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Jaguar Land Rover and Chery investing in Chinese plant

While the European auto market for Jaguar and Land Rover is waning, Chinese car buyers can't get enough of the British marques. To meet that demand, Tata Motors, parent company of Jag and Land Rover, is partnering with Chinese automaker Chery Automobile Co.
The two announced plans to invest $1.75 billion to build a new plant and create a new, China-focused brand. 2014 is the target for completion of the factory. Jaguars and Land Rovers built at the facility will be the first ever produced outside the UK according to the Associated Press. The JV will be called Chery Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Company Ltd.
The announcement comes less than a month after JLR announced it would open a design studio in China. It's not clear from the reports whether the two announcements are part of the same JV or two separate plans.

Jaguar XE SV Project 8 slices record Nuburgring lap down to 7:18.361

No production four-door vehicle has ever come close to breaking a seven-minute lap on Germany's Nuburgring (we see you WRX STI Type RA NBR), but manufacturers are slowly inching toward the achievement a few seconds at a time. Jaguar announced that it returned to the famed racetrack with its XE SV Project 8 and clocked a 7:18.361 lap, a new sedan record that's 2.9 seconds faster than the Project 8's previous record.  When Jaguar debuted the Project 8 in 2017, it had the makings of a specialty car that would slither into the shadows as quickly as it blasted onto the scene. But it's been quite the opposite. Jaguar has continued development of the vehicle and offers three different versions, including a touring variant. Production has lasted into the 2019 model year, and we recently tested one to get a handle of just how monstrous the thing truly is.  Much can change and be learned in two years, though, and Jaguar wanted to follow up its first trip to the Nurburgring, where it posted a record-setting time of 7:21.23. Under the guidance of Project 8 development driver Vincent Radermecker, the Jag ran the circuit in 7:18.361 on July 8, 2019. It did so in two-seat track pack spec and on Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires. Jaguar made sure to clarify a detail about the run and the time. The 2017 time was done on the then-used 20.6-kilometer (12.8 miles) setup, and so was this time. But starting in 2019, the Nurburgring began officially recording times on the full 20.832-kilometer (12.94 miles) lap. Using the 20.832 lap, the Project 8 recorded a time of 7:23.164. With that run, the 592-horsepower supercharged Project 8 is the first vehicle to set an official whole lap record in the mid-range production car class. Watch the 7:18 run in 360-degree video below.   This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

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