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Environmental group accuses BMW, JLR of link to deforestation in Paraguay

ASUNCION, Paraguay — Environmental group Earthsight said on Wednesday it has linked some of Europe's largest carmakers to the deforestation of the Chaco, a dry forest region of Paraguay home to jaguars and one of the last uncontacted indigenous groups in the world. The group said in a report that livestock companies have illegally logged lands of the Ayoreo Totobiegosode indigenous ethnic group, some of whose members live in voluntary isolation. The livestock skin is used in leather upholstery of luxury vehicles sold by high-end European auto brands including BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover, the group said. UK-based Earthsight said it had made covert visits to tanneries that bragged about supplying the raw material to the luxury car brands. "BMW is using hides sourced from two slaughterhouses processing cows from ranches responsible for illegal [logging] in the Ayoreo Totobiegosode's forests. Jaguar Land Rover didn't dispute sourcing from a Paraguayan tannery that processes hides from another slaughterhouse doing the same," the report said. Jaguar Land Rover said in a statement to Reuters it had found no evidence to verify Earthsight's claims. It said its European suppliers assured sustainability. "We continue  our drive for further transparency and, in this case, the leather supplier in Europe verifies with each raw material supplier that no rural property that directly supplies it is involved in illegal deforestation," the automaker said. BMW did not respond to a request for comment on the Earthsight investigation. Paraguay exports about 50,000 tons of wet-blue leather (tanned, but not dried, dyed or finished) a year, and almost two-thirds of those shipments are bound for Europe, according to the report. Automakers say that leather is a byproduct of the far larger meat industry and high-end cars constitute a comparatively small market niche. But indigenous leaders say deforestation driven by growth in beef and leather exports is encroaching on their territory and destroying their way of life. "As deforestation advances with extensive cattle ranching, they are being imprisoned, they are disappearing," Taguide Picanerai, a spokesman for the Ayoreo community in the Alto Paraguay department, northwest of Asuncion, told Reuters. The region is home to some of the world's highest rates of deforestation, Earthsight said.   Green BMW Jaguar Land Rover

Jaguar F-Type Coupe unveiled with range-topping R model

This is the Jaguar F-Type Coupe, the long-awaited hardtop counterpart to the F-Type roadster we tested earlier this year. Besides adding a roof, it shuffles up the engine range that we saw on the Convertible model, and in two of three cases, it cuts the cost of entry rather quite nicely (a happy contradiction to earlier reports).
The big change is that the F-Type Coupe does away with the Convertible's V8S trim (although the 495-horsepower variant will still be available in the droptop), and adds an even more potent letter to the top of the range. The $99,000 F-Type R Coupe is the latest member of Jaguar's R Performance line, and despite being down a letter on the XFR-S and XKR-S, it features the same 5.0-liter, 550-hp supercharged V8. With all that power on tap, the F-Type R will sprint to 60 mph in just 4.0 seconds (if it doesn't break into the 3s in independent testing, we'll be shocked) and on to a top speed of 186 miles per hour. If you need to get to freeway speeds quickly, the F-Type R will also go from 50 to 75 mph in just 2.4 seconds.
As the top tier model, the F-Type R is loaded down with performance-oriented tech. The suspension features adaptive dynamics that manage the car's body movements and adjust accordingly, while the suspension itself is 4.3-percent stiffer in front and 3.7-percent tighter in the back than the F-Type V8S Convertible. Drivers can dial up an even stiffer suspension setting in Dynamic Mode, which will also tweak the steering, the shift schedule of the eight-speed SportShift automatic and the throttle response of that brawny engine.

Jaguar Land Rover recalls Takata airbag-equipped cars

In the latest chapter of what feels like the never-ending recall, Jaguar Land Rover announced that it's calling back 2009-2011 Jaguar XFs and 2007-2011 Land Rover Range Rovers for defective Takata airbags on the front passenger side. These Takata airbags have propellant that may have degraded and, if activated, could release metal shrapnel. The company is breaking up the recall into four phases, since currently there are not enough parts to do a full recall. Since the airbags can be more seriously affected by high heat and humidity, the first phase will cover vehicles that were sold and/or registered in regions with high temperatures and humidity. The regions included are as follows: Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin Islands. Other phases will begin as parts become available, and priority will be given to regions at greater risk of having defective equipment. Jaguar Land Rover encourages owners of affected vehicles to go to www.SaferCar.gov to check if their vehicle is included in the current recall. The first phase includes 54,000 of 108,000 affected vehicles. The company is also notifying owners of the issue, who will eventually get a second notification when parts are available so they can schedule a time to have the airbags replaced. Related Video: