2006 Land Rover Range Rover Hse Sport Utility 4-door 4.4l on 2040-cars

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Jaguar wants to become the British electric company

Jaguar has been telegraphing its electric future for years, and this week we're beginning to see it come to fruition. The company's Formula E race team officially launched September 8 with sponsorship, livery, and an interesting name for its racecar, the I-Type 1. It marks Jaguar's return to factory-supported racing and serves as a model for the company's future strategy. "The Formula E championship will enable us to engineer and test our advanced technologies under extreme performance conditions," Nick Rogers, executive director of product engineering at Jaguar Land Rover, said in a statement. "We will apply this vital knowledge as part of our real-world development." Formula E competition starts October 9 as the all-electric racing series begins its third season. Panasonic signed on as the title sponsor of the team. Formula E is a natural move for Jag and allows the British company to remain true to its racing heritage while still looking toward. The company claims seven Le Mans titles, which is the fourth-most in history, even though it hasn't won one since 1990. That's a great lineage, but Jaguar knows it's getting dusty. Launching a Formula E effort allows it to compete in a form of motorsports that should prove relevant to road-car technology. Jag is drawing on Williams Advanced Engineering (you might have heard of its F1 team) for the electric powertrain. Williams also helped with the development of Jaguar's C-X75 plug-in concept car. Meanwhile, we also captured an F-Pace crossover silently testing this week in the Alps. Though it looks like a normal F-Pace, spy shooters report it was producing no engine noise, leading (or perhaps leaping) to the conclusion it's the rumored electric SUV Jaguar is working on. Likely, this prototype has a diesel engine as a range extender. View 11 Photos Though the camouflaged F-Pace is great fodder for speculation, Jag's electric efforts are not a secret. Jaguar and Land Rover showed off three electric-vehicle demonstrators last year and the company is exploring everything from mild hybrids to full electric powertrains. JLR has filed paperwork to secure trademarks for I-Pace and E-Pace. "JLR is definitely rushing headfirst into electrification," said Ed Kim, vice president of industry analysis for research firm AutoPacific.

Jaguar Land Rover's latest tech makes roads safer for bikes [w/video]

Safety in automobiles isn't just about protecting the occupants anymore. It's about protecting pedestrians who might be struck by an automobile, and as Jaguar Land Rover is demonstrating, it's about protecting cyclists as well. The latest experimental safety system from the British automaker is called Bike Sense, and it builds upon technologies the company has demonstrated recently, taking them a step further to make the road safer for those riding on two wheels. The system uses a combination of colors, sounds and vibrations to alert the driver of a potential hazard that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. Demonstrated on an XJ sedan, the system identifies nearby two-wheeled vehicles as pedal-powered or motorized, and alerts the driver accordingly. If a cycle is passing a the vehicle's blind spot, the top of the seat will vibrate to virtually "tap" the driver on the left or right shoulder, prompting him or her to look over that shoulder for the hazard. LEDs inside the cabin will then illuminate amber to red in the direction that the bike is passing. The system will even chime a bicycle bell or motorcycle horn as the two-wheeled vehicle approaches, and vibrate or stiffen the accelerator pedal if the driver keeps moving towards the obstacle. And if an occupant of the parked vehicle starts to open the door into the path of moving vehicle, it'll flash a light, sound an alarm and even vibrate the door handle to warn the occupant of the oncoming hazard. We could imagine the alerts getting a little distracting, but JLR says the system is designed to prioritize potential hazards when their are groups of pedestrians, bicyclists and/or motorcycle riders on a busy urban street. This is, of course, just the latest in a long string of new systems JLR has under development, following such technologies as the Transparent Bonnet, the Smart Assistant, the Virtual Windscreen for track sessions and the 360 Virtual Urban Windscreen for city driving. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

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.