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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.

Jaguar Land Rover launches Pivotal subscription service

Two years ago, Jaguar Land Rover launched a subscription service in the UK dubbed Carpe. The program was effectively a 12-month lease with no deposit and no mileage limit, and an all-inclusive monthly payment covering insurance, tax, service, and repairs. For GBP910 ($1,134 U.S.) plus the cost of fuel every month, a subscriber could secure a Jaguar E-Pace at the bottom end, a payment of GBP2,200 ($2,741 U.S.) per month opening the doors to a Range Rover Sport. In between, the Range Rover Evoque cost GBP980, the Jaguar XE GBP1,200, the Range Rover Velar GBP1,255, and Land Rover Discovery GBP1,550. The numbers and customer feedback have encouraged JLR to turn Carpe into Pivotal, with new lease levels, terms, and restrictions. Instead of keeping a vehicle for 12 months, Pivotal subscribers pay GBP550 to join, then swap out every six months. Changing cars early incurs a GBP250 fee, or customers can request to stick with the vehicle they have beyond six months, but JLR reserves the right to switch out cars when necessary. Pivotal keeps tabs to the odometer, too — instead of unlimited driving, the program caps fee-free travel at 1,500 miles per month, 20 pence per mile after that. However, the FAQ section explains that "mileage is accumulative so do not worry if you do not use your full mileage allowance, the first month can be carried on into the next within a given vehicle."  Carpe's six levels have been reduced to four Pivotal tiers. Blue costs GBP750 ($934 U.S.) per month and offers access to the Jaguar F-Pace, Land Rover Discovery Sport, or Range Rover Evoque, clearly a much better deal than GBP910 for an E-Pace (and we like the E-Pace). Indigo runs GBP1,150 ($1,433 U.S.) for the choice of a Jaguar I-Pace, Range Rover Velar, or Land Rover Discovery. Violet, costing GBP1,350 ($1,682 U.S.), comes with just one vehicle for now, the Range Rover Sport. Same goes for Ultraviolet at GBP1,600 ($1,993 U.S.), which gets the Range Rover. The brand already has plans to expand the fleet with the new Defender, and plug-in hybrid versions of the Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque The only noted repair item not covered is windshield replacement, which carries a GBP150 deductible. The splashy rework in England comes shortly after Mercedes-Benz shuttered its Collection service here in the U.S. On trial for two years in Nashville, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, Collection couldn't get the traction Mercedes wanted.

Driving Jaguar's Continuation Lightweight E-Type

Something has happened to sports cars over the past 15-20 years. While reaching ever-higher levels of quantitative dominance the driving experience continues to become more sterile. Stability control, torque vectoring, variable electronic steering racks, lightning-quick dual-clutch automatic transmissions – all these make it easier to harness more power and drive faster than ever before. And yet too often it feels like something is missing. There is a growing divide between the capabilities of the modern performance car and the driver's sense of connection to the experience. In an era like the one we're in now, the Jaguar Lightweight E-Type hits you like a slap in the face. The story of the Lightweight E-Type goes back to 1963, when Jaguar set aside eighteen chassis numbers for a run of "Special GT E-Type" cars. These were factory-built racers with aluminum bodies, powered by the aluminum-block, 3.8-liter inline-six found in Jaguar's C- and D-Type LeMans racecars of the 1950s. Of the eighteen cars slated for production, only twelve were built and delivered to customers in 1964. For the next fifty years, those last six chassis numbers lay dormant, until their rediscovery a couple of years ago in a book in Jaguar's archives. In an era like the one we're in now, the Jaguar Lightweight E-Type hits you like a slap in the face. Jaguar Heritage, a section of Jaguar Land Rover's new Special Vehicle Operations (SVO) division, took on the task of researching the original Lightweight E-Types and developing the methods to create new ones. Every aspect of the continuation Lightweight E-Type, from the development of the tools and molds used to build the cars, to the hand-craftsmanship, reflects doing things the hard way. They may not build them like they used to, but with these six special E-Types, Jaguar comes awfuly close, if not better. Working alongside the design team, Jaguar Heritage made a CAD scan of one side of an original Lightweight E-Type body. That scan was flipped to create a full car's worth of measurements. That ensured greater symmetry and better fit than on the original Lightweight E-Types (which could see five to ten millimeter variance, left-to-right). The scan was also used to perfect the frame, while Jaguar looked through notes in its crash repair books to reverse-engineer the Lightweight E-Type's suspension. The team repurposed a lot of existing tooling for the continuation cars, and developed the rest from analysis of the CAD scan.