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Jaguar Land Rover planning to allow owners to earn cryptocurrency

Jaguar Land Rover, Britain's largest auto manufacturer, said on Monday it is testing software that will allow drivers of its cars to earn the IOTA cryptocurrency as a reward for sharing data. The company is developing what it calls "smart wallet" technology to be installed in its automobiles. This would reward Jaguar car drivers with IOTA coins for actions such as enabling their vehicles to automatically report useful data, such as traffic congestion or potholes to navigation providers or local authorities. Drivers could also earn rewards if the car participates in a ride-sharing program, Jaguar said. The tokens earned could be used to pay for tolls, parking and charging for electric cars. The overall goal was to "achieve zero emissions, zero accidents, and zero congestion," the company said. Global car companies are exploring blockchain applications, figuring out different ways in which they can leverage the technology to suit their different needs. Blockchain, the system powering cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, is a shared database that is maintained by a network of computers connected to the internet. The British car company is testing the technology at the new Jaguar Land Rover software engineering base in Shannon, Ireland, where engineers have already equipped several vehicles, including the Jaguar F-PACE and Range Rover Velar, with "smart wallet" features, the company said. It does not yet have a timetable for when it will be commercially available, said Jaguar, a subsidiary of Tata Motors. The IOTA token is based on a distributed ledger technology that enables people and machines to transfer money and data without any transaction fees. IOTA trades on digital asset exchanges and was last at 27 U.S. cents per token. "The smart wallet technology ... can be easily adapted into all new vehicles," Dominik Schiener, IOTA co-founder and co-chairman of its board, told Reuters on Friday. "IOTA wants to enable interoperability with all these different players. So there is no Jaguar coin, no BMW coin, but one universal token for this machine economy," he added.

The Jaguar E-Pace shows off a rather cab-forward look in these spy shots

It seems the Jaguar F-Pace may be getting a little sibling soon. A smaller crossover, which we expect will be called the E-Pace, has been caught during winter testing. The SUV seen here appears to be sized like compact luxury crossovers such as the Audi Q3 and BMW X1. This also fits with Jaguar's brand director's statements that it has been considering an SUV for this class. Much of the car is well camouflaged, but taking a close look, this E-Pace has a surprisingly short dash-to-axle ratio. It's not as drastic as the electric I-Pace concept, but there's so little space between the bumper and the base of the windshield that we sincerely doubt that a longitudinal inline-4 or V6 could be lurking under the hood. And, if the E-Pace does in fact use a transverse-mounted engine, it probably doesn't share a platform with any of its rear-drive-based stablemates. It may seem strange that a company known for its rear-drive cars is considering a transverse, front-drive-based vehicle, but there are reasons it may be going this way. For one thing, Jaguar's brand director said he wasn't sure that the company's existing platforms could be scaled down far enough for such a compact crossover. That would seem to preclude using an existing rear-drive platform or developing a totally new one. In fact, it only leaves one real option in the Jaguar Land Rover line for this vehicle: the Range Rover Evoque platform, which is also shared with the Discovery Sport. It's a small SUV platform with a transverse layout. It's also currently available and should be cheap to adapt; perfect for capitalizing on the hot crossover market. We just hope Jaguar can inject some more fun into it than Land Rover did with the Discovery Sport. Using that platform also means Jaguar would probably borrow one or more engines from the Evoque and Discovery Sport. In the US, both models are only offered with a turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-4 making 240 horsepower. Overseas, both vehicles are available with 2.0-liter turbodiesel four-cylinders, making either 150 or 180 horsepower too. Considering that the 180-horsepower diesel model will arrive in the US under the hood of the Jaguar XE, it's possible that it will show up in the E-Pace as well. Don't expect any of the overseas manual transmissions to make the trip, though. Jaguar only offers a manual on the F-Type sports car in the US, so there really isn't any reason to add one to a small crossover.

Jaguar I-Pace concept previews all-electric SUV for 2018

It seemed that Tesla would stand alone for years with a battery-electric SUV. The Germans were coming, of course, but they appeared content to time their battery push until government regulations forced them there around 2020. That's all changed. Jaguar is promising to turn its I-Pace concept SUV into a full-fledged production crossover SUV within two years. It's Jaguar's way of leaping from internal-combustion power, clean over the top of plug-in hybrids, straight to zero-emission battery-electric vehicles. It says a lot about Jaguar's focus that the second SUV in its production history will also be its first electric car. It debuts this week at the Los Angeles auto show. The Indian-owned carmaker is promising the five-seat I-Pace will look, feel, handle, and perform like a proper Jaguar, too, with a 0-60-mph time of around four seconds. With 516 pound-feet of torque being pumped out of its two electric motors, the I-Pace has as much gristle as the pure-bred F-Type SVR sports car, and it has it from zero rpm. It's also promising the two motors will combine for 400 horsepower, too. It won't need to compromise on range to get its performance, with Jaguar promising the I-Pace will stretch across to 220 miles of range from its 90-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack. It will also take two hours to charge on a 50-kW fast-charging DC station, or achieve 80 percent charging in 90 minutes, and Jaguar insists commuters who drive about 30 miles a day would only need charging once a week. It won't be the last EV from Jaguar Land Rover, either, with its scalable modular architecture designed from scratch to spread across the corporate portfolio and to move down to smaller sedans and coupes or up to full-sized Range Rover contenders. The crossover SUV uses the alloy battery casing as an integral, stressed part of the I-Pace's chassis architecture, lowering the ride height and adding body rigidity. After entering the all-electric Formula E championship this year, Jaguar says it designed and engineered the batteries and the electric motors in-house. "This is an uncompromised electric vehicle designed from a clean sheet of paper: we've developed a new architecture and selected only the best technology available," said Jaguar Land Rover's technical development leader, Wolfgang Ziebart.