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Environmental group accuses BMW, JLR of link to deforestation in Paraguay

ASUNCION, Paraguay — Environmental group Earthsight said on Wednesday it has linked some of Europe's largest carmakers to the deforestation of the Chaco, a dry forest region of Paraguay home to jaguars and one of the last uncontacted indigenous groups in the world. The group said in a report that livestock companies have illegally logged lands of the Ayoreo Totobiegosode indigenous ethnic group, some of whose members live in voluntary isolation. The livestock skin is used in leather upholstery of luxury vehicles sold by high-end European auto brands including BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover, the group said. UK-based Earthsight said it had made covert visits to tanneries that bragged about supplying the raw material to the luxury car brands. "BMW is using hides sourced from two slaughterhouses processing cows from ranches responsible for illegal [logging] in the Ayoreo Totobiegosode's forests. Jaguar Land Rover didn't dispute sourcing from a Paraguayan tannery that processes hides from another slaughterhouse doing the same," the report said. Jaguar Land Rover said in a statement to Reuters it had found no evidence to verify Earthsight's claims. It said its European suppliers assured sustainability. "We continue  our drive for further transparency and, in this case, the leather supplier in Europe verifies with each raw material supplier that no rural property that directly supplies it is involved in illegal deforestation," the automaker said. BMW did not respond to a request for comment on the Earthsight investigation. Paraguay exports about 50,000 tons of wet-blue leather (tanned, but not dried, dyed or finished) a year, and almost two-thirds of those shipments are bound for Europe, according to the report. Automakers say that leather is a byproduct of the far larger meat industry and high-end cars constitute a comparatively small market niche. But indigenous leaders say deforestation driven by growth in beef and leather exports is encroaching on their territory and destroying their way of life. "As deforestation advances with extensive cattle ranching, they are being imprisoned, they are disappearing," Taguide Picanerai, a spokesman for the Ayoreo community in the Alto Paraguay department, northwest of Asuncion, told Reuters. The region is home to some of the world's highest rates of deforestation, Earthsight said.   Green BMW Jaguar Land Rover

Jaguar Land Rover says half its models will be hybrids or all-electric by 2020

Neither Jaguar nor Land Rover has ever been mistaken for big-time green-car brands, but their parent company is trying to change that. Jaguar Land Rover looks to have as many as half of its models be of the hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or battery-electric variety by 2020, CEO Ralf Speth said at the Los Angeles Auto Show last week. Speth made the announcement while showing off the I-Pace concept compact crossover. The green-car expansion would mark a natural extension of Jaguar Land Rover's decision last year to double the headcount in its advanced-engineering department. As for the five-seat I-Pace, that model will be Jaguar Land Rover's first production electric vehicle when it starts sales in 2018. The car will have a 90-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack that will deliver a single-charge range of about 220 miles. Boasting more than 400 horsepower, the car will also be able to go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in about four seconds. What's also notable is that Jaguar says the model has been designed to be an electric vehicle from the ground up, and hasn't been converted from the platform of an existing model. Of course, Jaguar late last year said it would enter a team in the FIA Formula E electric-vehicle open-wheel racing circuit, so the British badge has made recent noise about upping its green-car quotient. As for the I-Pace, the automaker hasn't revealed pricing on the model, but it's safe to say that it will be quite high. Check out a three-minute video of Speth's presentation here. Related Video:

Pivi Pro Jaguar Land Rover Infotainment Review | A massive improvement

Infotainment systems in Jaguar Land Rover products have irked us for a long while. They’re generally a good step — or several — behind other luxury automakers' infotainment systems in terms of features and looks. But the big problem has always been their functionality. Even right out of the gate, they exhibited an undue amount of lag and general bugginess. Pivi Pro is supposed to change all of that. ItÂ’s JLRÂ’s completely new-from-the-ground-up infotainment system that is quickly spreading across the companyÂ’s range of products. It features a new screen size and layout. Plus, the software itÂ’s running is vastly different from what we saw previously. Our Byron Hurd got a first taste of it with a number of JLR products in a short period of time and found it to be a big improvement. Now, weÂ’ve had a new Land Rover Discovery in the garage for a longer period to fully suss out the system. Will it hold up? Watch the video above for a quick tour, and keep reading for some more detailed thoughts. Before diving in too deep, you should know off the top that Pivi Pro is a massive improvement over JLR infotainment systems of old. There are still some issues, but the new systemÂ’s performance is exponentially better than what itÂ’s replacing. This is partly thanks to it now running off its own backup battery. This allows the whole system to load immediately upon startup, ensuring that you arenÂ’t sitting and waiting for items to populate after you press the start button.  The new 11.4-inch screen this software plays on is splendid to both look at and touch. ItÂ’s a super-high-resolution panel, and it takes to our inputs quickly and without protest. The new UI layout makes things easier and prettier, too. All of your important items are tucked into a panel on the left, making them super easy to find and select. Plus, a sticky “home” button means you can always find your way out of menus when youÂ’re done diving around. We dig the three-panel home screen and its minimalist style, but for those who might favor maximum functionality over a pretty home screen, you can replace this with rows of app icons. For those wanting to use their phones, there is indeed an in-car WiFi data plan available to buy. Plus, JLR newly allows you to connect two devices via Bluetooth instead of just one. Both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are nicely integrated with this new system.