2003 Land Rover Discovery Se Sport Utility 4 Wheel Drive 4-door 4.6l Automatic on 2040-cars

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Could Jaguar become an EV-only brand?

Just yesterday we wrote about the Heisenbergian uncertainty surrounding the future of the Jaguar F-Type. A new report in Autocar prompts us to consider extending that ambiguity to the entire Jaguar brand. The UK magazine reports the automaker's product planners have devised a ten-year plan to switch to a pure EV lineup of cars and crossovers. According to Autocar's sources this is a planning exercise and doesn't have the green light, but it's "fairly advanced" and has adherents inside the company. The first shot fired would be an all-electric XJ replacement. That sedan, a "no-holds-barred luxury car" to challenge the Tesla Model S and Porsche Taycan, would provide emissions-free motoring before the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and BMW 7 Series come with their EV propositions. Around 2023, an EV crossover a touch larger than the full-sized Audi E-tron would replace both the XF and XE sedans. Two years later, a new mid-sized I-Pace would debut as both the F-Pace and E-Pace fade out. And two years after that, around 2027, the J-Pace luxury crossover would sigh its last ICE gasp. And what about the F-Type? The report says "with no replacement for F-Type in the works," an electric sports car "is also a possibility." There's no mention of the XK revival. Right now, Jaguar sells seven models - four sedans and three crossovers. As the Autocar article's written, come 2027 Jaguar would have an electric XJ sedan, a full-sized EV crossover, the I-Pace, and perhaps an electric sports car. That's a brave new world - one we're not sure Jaguar dealers could survive in. Problem is that Jaguar and its dealers are having plenty of problems now. Chinese-market volatility, the cloud around diesels, and Brexit uncertainty have contributed to a sales slump so dire that Jaguar's Castle Bromwich plant is going to a three-day week for the rest of the year. The sales flu has spread to Land Rover, too, the brand's Solihull plant closing for two weeks to realign dealer inventory. Considering all that, and with no easy relief in sight, the product planners are apparently debating whether a new, traditional three-model sedan range is worth the investment. The upside of going all-electric is said to be higher sales, with internal estimates supposing 300,000 units annually. Last year Jaguar sold 178,500 units. The marque could rake in larger profit margins on those sales, too, thanks to premium buyers being ready to shell out big ducats for EVs.

Land Rover could build a baby Defender on a platform sourced from BMW

The collaboration between BMW and Jaguar-Land Rover started out small, it was originally limited to motors for electric cars, but it might not stay that way for long. The Tata-owned British sister companies will allegedly rummage through Munich's sizable parts bin to build nearly half a dozen cars scheduled to come out during the 2020s. According to a report by British magazine Autocar, Jaguar has started designing two small cars that will join its growing family of Pace-badged soft-roaders. They'll be new additions to the firm's portfolio, not replacements for existing cars. One will be a regular crossover, while the other will be a swoopier, form-over-function four-door model ostensibly marketed as a coupe. Both will slot at the very bottom of the Jaguar portfolio, below the already pretty small E-Pace, in a growing market segment where the competition is fierce, and profit margins are thinner than an i3's tires. Here's where BMW apparently comes in. Instead of developing a platform from scratch, the two crossovers could ride on the hybrid-ready, front-wheel drive FAAR architecture found under the third-generation 1 Series hatchback and the upcoming 2 Series Gran Coupe. If we believe an earlier report claiming Jaguar and BMW will also share engines, most of the hardware found under the sheet metal will have German genes. All-wheel drive will certainly be available, and it could also come from BMW. The same platform -- and, presumably, the same engines -- would provide the basis for a Land Rover-badged model positioned in the same segment. Autocar learned it will be to the next-generation Defender (pictured) what the Mercedes-Benz GLB is to the G-Class. Some key design cues will carry over, but the two models will share absolutely nothing under the sheet metal. The soft-roader could resurrect the Freelander nameplate when it goes on sale during the 2020s. Looking even further ahead, the front-wheel-drive platform the next Mini Countryman and X1 will utilize could find its way under the replacements for the next Range Rover Evoque and Discovery Sport. These plans could very well change; the Evoque and the Disco Sport barely entered their second generation, so they're not due for a replacement until the second half of the coming decade. While neither company has confirmed or denied the report, the partnership makes sense from a business standpoint.

Jaguar Land Rover exploring 3D HUD and infotainment projections

With its most recent technology research, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is exploring the use of 3D projections for a world before and/or after autonomous vehicles come to fruition. In collaboration with the United Kingdom's University of Cambridge, JLR has developed concepts for a 3D head-up display that shows information on the road ahead and a system that projects personalized 3D infotainment for vehicle passengers.  As of right now, hundreds of production vehicles are equipped with two-dimensional head-up displays, some color, others black and white. Using various techniques and different technologies, manufacturers display information in a flat image in front of a driver. Some might find it distracting or unhelpful to have this in the driver's line of sight, and JLR might have found a solution. Rather than wedge the information in between the person and the view ahead, a 3D system that uses augmented reality could display the info onto the road in front of the driver. JLR thinks the system could project navigation directions, safety alerts such as lane departure, hazard detection or other bits typically found in a car's infotainment or instrument cluster. Some might find this to be even more distracting that 2D head-up displays, but to each his or her own. While the 3D head-up display is something that could be used right now, if it were released and passed legal, part two of JLR's 3D technology research is imagined for a life where truly autonomous vehicles are skating across the country. Using head- and eye-tracking technology, the system could lock into the position of numerous people in a vehicle and give each of them a personalized 3D projection "screen." This could be used to track a trip, look up points of interest, or even watch movies. JLR points out this could be used during ride-sharing without bothering others in the vehicle. The work with the Center for Advanced Photonics and Electronics at Cambridge is still in development for now, but it's only a matter of time before 3D tech makes it into cars in some degree.