Land Rover Range Rover Hse on 2040-cars

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Tata to get Jaguar and Land Rover tech, platforms too?

Since buying Jaguar Land Rover, Indian automaker Tata has generally left its luxury arm's platforms and technology alone. However, those days might be gone. The two of them are gradually growing closer with coordinated development and rumors of shared platforms. And it looks like all of that work and money is finally going to pay off with an actual vehicle in the near future.
According to Australian website Drive, Tata wants to make its cars more attractive to buyers outside of India, and to do that the company knows it must improve quality. The Indian company is being careful, though, because it doesn't want to dilute the Jaguar or Land Rover brands with cheap models. "You're going to see in the future a lot of sharing of technologies and platforms over time, but you won't see a JLR with a Tata badge on it," said Darren Bowler, managing director of Tata's Australian distributor, to Drive.
According to Bowler, these future vehicles are already on the way. Tata and JLR have a global platform in the works for 2017 that both companies could use for cars or crossovers. He also hinted that Jaguar's new Ingenium engines could be shared among the brands in the future, too.

Second 'No Time To Die' trailer drops with lots of crunching metal

The second trailer for the new James Bond film, "No Time To Die," was posted to social media Thursday morning, getting us thoroughly hyped for the forthcoming installment thanks to some spicy car content and lots of other ridiculous, big-budget action sequences.  Fair warning for the purists: This might contain plot- and character-related information from the trailer itself. Also, it appears that many Land Rover Defenders died in the making of this film, so the footage may not be for the faint of heart; don't say we didn't give you advance notice.  As is typical of Bond films, most of the automotive eye candy is of the European variety. The classic Aston Martin DB5 gadget car (which we saw doing some crazy machine-gun donuts in the first trailer) makes yet another appearance, as does what appears to be fourth-generation Maserati Quattroporte. There's even something which might be a car, but also appears to be both some sort of airplane and submersible. Never change, Bond. We love it.  And then there are the Defenders. We've got Defenders speeding down hillsides, Defenders crashing through forests, Defenders flying over Land Cruisers. Yeah, do you like Land Cruisers? There's a Land Cruiser. It even (spoiler alert!) survives relatively unscathed; the same cannot be said for most of the automotive shenanigans we get to see here.  "No Time To Die" was originally slated to debut back in April, but its original release date roughly coincided with the projected peak of early coronavirus infections. Given how important the Bond film franchise's continued success is to MGM (it's virtually the only thing the studio has had going for it for 30 years) and the producers (who only make Bond films), meager box office returns were not an option. The last film, Spectre, pulled in the worldwide gross of $880 million, including $200 million in the United States and $83.5 million in China. The wait is almost over. "No Time to Die" will hit theaters Nov. 25 in the United States.  Related Video:

U.S. issues new tariff threat, this time against British-built cars

WASHINGTON — Britain is the United States' closest ally but their long friendship may be sorely tested as the two countries try to forge a new trade agreement after Britain's exit from the European Union. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday in London that he was optimistic that a bilateral deal with Britain could be reached as soon as this year. But Mnuchin gave up no ground after a second meeting with his UK counterpart, Sajid Javid. Javid has insisted that Britain will proceed with a unilateral digital services tax, despite a U.S. threat to levy retaliatory tariffs on British-made autos. Mnuchin told reporters after Saturday's meeting that such taxes would discriminate against big U.S. tech companies like Alphabet Inc's Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. The UK Treasury declined to comment on the private meeting. The divide highlights the challenges ahead as the Trump administration seeks a new bilateral agreement with Britain, part of a broader push to rebalance relations with nearly all its major trading partners. The stakes are high — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pegged the trade deal with United States as a way to ease the pain of breaking with Europe, Britain's largest trade partner. U.S. President Donald Trump, has promised a "massive" trade deal to support Brexit, the product of a populist movement similar to his "America First" agenda. The goodwill and special relationship the two countries have enjoyed for decades may not count for much, experts say. "Trump is not going to be doing Johnson any favors," said Amanda Sloat, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution in Washington. "He's not going to give him a trade deal without major concessions." Even before the digital tax issue arose, the Trump administration threatened to tax foreign car imports, which could hit British-made Jaguar, Land Rover, Mini, and Honda Civic hatchback cars. Stiff U.S. trade demands include increased access for U.S. farm goods, concessions that will be difficult for Britain's entrenched natural food culture to swallow. The United States also wants Britain to change the way its National Health Service prices drugs and allow in more U.S. pharmaceuticals, which could prove politically unpopular for Johnson's government. Washington's demand that London block Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co Ltd for national security reasons could also cloud talks.