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Jaguar Land Rover names ousted Renault boss as new CEO

LONDON — Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has picked ousted Renault boss Thierry Bollore as its next chief executive, with a mission to return Britain's biggest carmaker to profit after a big hit from the COVID-19 pandemic. Bollore took over at Renault in January 2019 after the fall of Carlos Ghosn, but was always viewed as close to the French carmaker's longtime boss and was pushed out in October when the company was looking for a fresh start. Bollore will take over at JLR on Sept. 10, replacing Ralf Speth, whose tenure ends after more than 10 years. "It will be my privilege to lead this fantastic company through what continues to be the most testing time of our generation," Bollore said in a statement on Tuesday. JLR was hit this year first by disruption to sales in China and then by lockdowns across Europe and North America as the COVID-19 outbreak spread around the globe. In 2019, it cut jobs to address tumbling diesel sales, which helped it return to profit. But as the pandemic struck, it slumped to a pretax loss of 422 million pounds ($545 million) for the year ended March 31, 2020. The company has already taken steps to tackle the crisis, including agreeing to a loan facility of around $700 million with lenders in China and further staff reductions. JLR is also in talks with the British government over potential support, according to media reports. Bollore takes over a business that built just over 500,000 cars in 2019/20. He faces a number of tasks, including how to handle the Jaguar brand, which underperforms the Land Rover marque, how quickly to electrify its lineup and a potential hit from Brexit if trade barriers are imposed. JLR has a partnership with BMW on electrification, and parent company Tata Motors recently recommitted to the company. "Tata Group recognizes and values Jaguar Land Rover's future potential highly," said JLR Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran earlier this month. "That is why this company is central to our global automotive presence – a presence that we intend to develop for years to come." Related Video:         (Additional reporting by Chris Thomas in Bengaluru and Gilles Guillaume in Paris; editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter)

The 10 car brands most expensive to maintain over 10 years

Car maintenance has got to be one of the least fun things you can do with your free time, right behind going to the dentist and filing your taxes. However, depending on the brand you buy, your time spent at the shop could be much more than you bargained for. Consumer Reports’ new study on the most- and least-expensive-to-maintain car brands found that European car companies are most likely to break your wallet with costs nearly five times that of the automakers at the other end of the spectrum. Land Rover had the highest ten-year maintenance costs, at an average of $19,250. Porsche was second worst with $14,090 in costs. 10 car brands most expensive to maintain over 10 years: Land Rover: $19,250 Porsche: $14,090 Mercedes-Benz: $10,525 Audi: $9,890 BMW: $9,500 Volvo: $9,285 Infiniti: $8,500 Acura: $7,800 Mini: $7,625 Subaru: $7,200 The Euro brands at the “top” of this list arenÂ’t all that surprising. Land Rover has consistently landed as one of the most expensive vehicle brands to maintain for years now, though Porsche is generally viewed as being one of the more solid performance brands. That could suggest that some models donÂ’t always require more repairs, but the fixes they do need are significantly more expensive. Tesla, Buick, and Toyota were the three cheapest to maintain car brands, with 10-year maintenance costs of $4,035, $4,900, and $4,900, respectively. Consumer Reports noted that these numbers could be slightly skewed due to the fact that some automakers offer free maintenance for the first few years of ownership, and all companies cover their new vehicles for at least a few years after the purchase. Routine maintenance is a great way to avoid costly repairs over time, as itÂ’s much cheaper to catch a problem before it starts causing other issues. Check your oil, rotate your tires, and avoid driving like a wild person, and youÂ’ll likely fare much better than others, even if you own one of the scarier-to-maintain brands.

Jaguar CEO says people just don't want EVs right now

"Customers are not impressed with it currently." These are the words of one Ralf Speth, CEO of Jaguar Land Rover, spoke at the Automotive News Europe Congress in Birmingham, England. The "it" Speth is referring to is battery technology, which he characterized as "too heavy, too expensive," and with power density that's "too low." That all could go some way towards explaining why the British automaker has yet to bring an electric vehicle to market, why it killed the C-X75 hybrid-turbine supercar project, and why it only recently started offering hybrid versions of its Range Rover models (and has yet to offer them in the United States). That doesn't mean the company won't pursue electric propulsion in the future, though. According to Automotive News Europe, Speth forecasts that "the next generation of batteries will be higher density, lower weight and the cost will come down." What he didn't say, exactly, is when he expects that next generation of battery tech to come around – or when JLR will start to more closely embrace electric propulsion. In the meantime, Jaguar Land Rover will continue investing in research and development. Since Tata acquired the brands from Ford seven years ago, JLR has quadrupled its R&D budget and doubled the number of engineers on staff. Related Video: