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Jaguar Land Rover names ousted Renault boss as new CEO

LONDON — Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has picked ousted Renault boss Thierry Bollore as its next chief executive, with a mission to return Britain's biggest carmaker to profit after a big hit from the COVID-19 pandemic. Bollore took over at Renault in January 2019 after the fall of Carlos Ghosn, but was always viewed as close to the French carmaker's longtime boss and was pushed out in October when the company was looking for a fresh start. Bollore will take over at JLR on Sept. 10, replacing Ralf Speth, whose tenure ends after more than 10 years. "It will be my privilege to lead this fantastic company through what continues to be the most testing time of our generation," Bollore said in a statement on Tuesday. JLR was hit this year first by disruption to sales in China and then by lockdowns across Europe and North America as the COVID-19 outbreak spread around the globe. In 2019, it cut jobs to address tumbling diesel sales, which helped it return to profit. But as the pandemic struck, it slumped to a pretax loss of 422 million pounds ($545 million) for the year ended March 31, 2020. The company has already taken steps to tackle the crisis, including agreeing to a loan facility of around $700 million with lenders in China and further staff reductions. JLR is also in talks with the British government over potential support, according to media reports. Bollore takes over a business that built just over 500,000 cars in 2019/20. He faces a number of tasks, including how to handle the Jaguar brand, which underperforms the Land Rover marque, how quickly to electrify its lineup and a potential hit from Brexit if trade barriers are imposed. JLR has a partnership with BMW on electrification, and parent company Tata Motors recently recommitted to the company. "Tata Group recognizes and values Jaguar Land Rover's future potential highly," said JLR Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran earlier this month. "That is why this company is central to our global automotive presence – a presence that we intend to develop for years to come." Related Video:         (Additional reporting by Chris Thomas in Bengaluru and Gilles Guillaume in Paris; editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter)

2018 Jaguar F-Type 2.0T First Drive Review | Less soulful, still sexy

Jaguar is eager to promote its Ingenium turbocharged inline-four as a legitimate object of performance desire, and what better way to do so than drop it into its most desirous car? The 2018 Jaguar F-Type Coupe to this point has featured six- and eight-cylinder engines, all supercharged, but this is the first time that the other type of forced induction has made its way under the F-Type's long, sculpted hood. The new pairing looks pretty good on paper. The 2.0-liter engine's 295 pound-feet of torque is available from 1,500 to 4,500 RPM. It makes 296 horsepower at 5,500 RPM, 44 horsepower shy of the blown V6 model, but weighs 117 pounds less. That's enough to motivate the 3,360-pound F-Type to 60 mph in the mid-5-second range, only 0.3 seconds behind said V6. The 2.0-liter is also a lot cheaper – $8,100 less than a bare-bones V6. That'll probably make the decision for a lot of folks, dropping the base F-Type into a whole 'nother class of sporty two-seaters. I'll posit, however, that the F-Type isn't a raw numbers car. It's a passionate thing that appeals to an emotional part of our brain. Just look at it! The coupe we tested, in Fuji White, was fresh as a mountain stream despite the platform's age. The sheetmetal is, quite simply, most of the appeal. Even the base wheels, 18-inch, 10-spoke alloys, look phenomenal. And since the F-Type 2.0 is sexy, undeniably quick enough to back up its sporting looks, and a significant price savings over a V6, it's almost a killer app. If only the little Ingenium turbo-four was as passionate as the F-Type itself. It's a workaday unit, coarse and gruff. After all, it sees duty in just about everything else Jaguar-Land Rover makes, from the lowly Discovery Sport to the big XJ. Its clattery four-cylinder noises and thrashiness don't jibe with the premium sports-touring vibe the rest of the car exudes. We've gotten used to, if not come to universally love, four-cylinder pony cars like the Mustang and Camaro, but the divergence in character between car and powerplant here is vast. It does the job, sure, but you enjoy the F-Type in spite of its engine, rather than because of it. Low-speed tractability issues don't help things any, whether the engine's charms are important to you or not. An odd combination of boost, driveline shunt, or transmission confusion make low-speed maneuvering jerky, regardless of drive mode. Putz around a mall parking lot or sit in traffic for a few minutes, and it'll be clear what I'm on about.

2017 Jaguar XE First Drive

For the first time in decades, the prize for the best-driving compact luxury sport sedan is very much up for grabs. BMW's 3 Series, the segment's longstanding archetype, has grown a bit soft, distant and pricy. Its Japanese rival from Infiniti, the Q50, lost the plot thanks to its video game steering and dated powerplant. The Audi A4 is due for replacement and the fantastic Mercedes-Benz C-Class skews luxury over sport. The Cadillac ATS? With an excellent chassis hobbled by middling powertrains and the devil's own infotainment system, it isn't selling. Unlikely as it sounds, the Lexus IS is probably the segment's best driver, but you've got to learn to love those turn-to-stone looks. So, where's a segment malcontent to look? Provided he or she is patient enough to wait for this car's spring 2016 arrival, allow us to recommend the 2017 Jaguar XE. Let's be honest. Jaguar really needed to come out with guns blazing. The last time the British brand battled in the compact premium sport sedan segment, its much-maligned X-Type slinked into the underbrush, tail between its legs after just a single generation. While the X was in some ways a better car than history will begrudge it, there's no getting around that Jaguar brought a front-wheel-drive-based knife to a rear-wheel-drive gun fight. This new XE will need to be a very different kitty, and it is. Internally known as X760, Jag's latest rides atop an all-new aluminum-intensive modular architecture wearing a handsome mosaic of aluminum and steel body panels. While the XE's design has struck us as very familiar since it first bowed in September, it's an attractive shape. Its longish, 111.6-inch wheelbase and wheels-at-the-corner stance gives the design a planted look emphasized by its wide rectangular grille and prominent lower air intakes. Jaguar claims a super-slick .26 coefficient of drag, but that's the skinny-tired overseas base model that we'll never see – ours will likely ring up a few hundredths higher. The aluminum body-in-white is itself an impressive piece of work, weighing just over 550 pounds. Vehicle engineering manager Jonathan Darlington says it's 20-percent stiffer torsionally than the XF, and "the lightest in the sector by far." What's more, the chassis incorporates liberal amounts of recycled aluminum (a claimed world first) and increased use of structural adhesives.