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BMW and Jaguar Land Rover to jointly develop electric car tech

FRANKFURT – BMW and Jaguar Land Rover on Wednesday said they will jointly develop electric motors, transmissions and power electronics, unveiling yet another industry alliance designed to lower the costs of developing electric cars. Both carmakers are under pressure to roll out zero-emission vehicles to meet stringent anti-pollution rules, but have struggled to maintain profit margins faced with the rising costs of making electric, connected and autonomous cars. "Together, we have the opportunity to cater more effectively for customer needs by shortening development time and bringing vehicles and state-of-the-art technologies more rapidly to market," said BMW board member Klaus Froehlich. BMW and Jaguar Land Rover said they will save costs through shared development, production planning and joint purchasing of electric car components. Both companies will produce electric drivetrains in their own manufacturing facilities, BMW said. The BMW Jaguar Land Rover pact comes as rivals FiatChrysler and Renault explore a $35 billion tie-up of the Italian-American and French carmaking groups. Nick Rogers, Jaguar Land Rover's engineering director said, "We've proven we can build world beating electric cars but now we need to scale the technology to support the next generation of Jaguar and Land Rover products." BMW was in talks with rival Daimler about developing electric car components but was also in discussions with Jaguar Land Rover, a company it once owned, to explore an alliance on engines. BMW already has a deal to supply an 8 cylinder engine to Jaguar Land Rover. Carmakers are increasingly open to sharing electric car parts because the technology is expensive and because customers no longer buy a car based on what engine a vehicle has. "Carmakers are much less precious about sharing electric car technology because it is much harder to create product differentiation with electric car tech. They all accelerate fast, and everybody can do quality and ride and handling," according to Carl-Peter Forster a former chief executive of Tata Motors and a former BMW executive. Jaguar Land Rover is still run by former BMW managers, including Ralf Speth the company's chief executive who spent 20 years at BMW prior to joining JLR, and Wolfgang Ziebart, the engineer who oversaw Jaguar's I-Pace electric car program, who is a former head of research and development at BMW.

Your guide to vehicle subscription services

They might be extremely limited in scope because of location availability, but vehicle subscription services are a growing trend that most luxury manufacturers are jumping on. Plans are expensive, but you're paying for much more than just the car typically. We highlighted four of the larger plans with a few more listed at the end. Care by Volvo Volvo launched its subscription service last year with its brand-new XC40. It was the only vehicle available for a time, but subscribers can now get an S60 sedan as well. Subscriptions are for two years, with the monthly price including insurance, a concierge service, wear-and-tear item replacements and all maintenance. You'll be able to drive 15,000 miles per year with whichever Volvo you choose, and although there are no options to extend that mileage, you can swap cars after a year. Pricing for the XC40 is $650 per month in base trim, while an S60 can be as expensive as $850 for the R-Design. Volvo's plan is to offer more cars soon through the service, but it's relatively limited compared to others right now. Porsche Passport Porsche has two levels in its subscription service: Launch and Accelerate. Launch will cost $2,000 per month and give you access to the Cayman, Boxster, Macan and Cayenne. All of those but the Cayenne can be had in "S" trim as well. Accelerate is where the fun really starts. For $3,000 per month you can choose from a fleet of 911s, including the S, 4S, Cabriolet and Cabriolet S. If those aren't enough, you can also get the Panamera 4S, Macan GTS and Cayenne S. There are no mileage limits and you can change vehicles as often as you'd like. Also included in the price is insurance, repairs, detailing and any maintenance. It might be extremely expensive and limited to Atlanta only, but this subscription service is second-to-none for what you get. Audi Select Audi just launched its subscription car service, and it's offered in one version for a flat fee of $1,395 per month. For that you'll have access to five different cars including the A4, S5 Coupe, A5 Cabriolet, Q5, and Q7. Not a bad range of vehicles, but it would've been neat to see the recently updated A7 in there too. Maybe in time. Like the others, insurance and maintenance are wrapped up in the price. Audi is allowing for unlimited miles and two car swaps per month here. In addition to that, you'll get two days of free rentals through Audi's Silvercar rental agency should you go on a trip.

2019 Jaguar I-Pace gets official 234-mile range rating

The 2019 Jaguar I-Pace is officially rated to travel as far as 234 miles on a single charge of its battery pack. That's down slightly from the 240 miles initially promised when the slinky electric crossover was first unveiled here in the States. And, while it's roughly equal to the base version of the Tesla Model X, that's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison. Quoting maximum electric range without considering the capacity of a car's battery pack is the same as quoting the maximum driving range of a gasoline-fueled vehicle without considering how many gallons of gas the tank holds. The I-Pace's battery pack is rated at 90kWh. The Model X's smallest pack is 75kWh. So the Tesla can go about the same total distance as the Jaguar using significantly less energy. It's not just Tesla that boasts greater efficiency figures than the Jaguar. Chevy manages to eke 238 miles out of the Bolt EV's 60kWh battery pack, and Hyundai gets 258 miles from the Kona Electric's 64kWh pack. These vehicles certainly don't all play in the same market segments, and there are a lot of variables to consider. For instance, the Jaguar's 4.5-second 0-60 rating is quicker than the Model X's 4.9-second rating, and its advertised power output of 394 horsepower and 512 pound-feet of torque is higher than Tesla's for the 75D (though Tesla's actual power numbers aren't really advertised in traditional hp and lb-ft figures). But even if cars like the Model X, Chevy Bolt, and Hyundai Kona EV aren't directly comparable across the board, their range and battery capacity figures do help us understand the relative efficiency of each specific vehicle. The efficiency of electric vehicles rated by the EPA is expressed as a MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) figure. The 2019 Jaguar I-Pace's figures of 80 city, 72 highway, and 76 combined MPGe don't compare favorably with the Tesla Model X's 91 MPGe city, 95 MPGe highway and 93 MPGe combined ratings. It'll be interesting to see how much EV buyers care about the Jaguar's comparatively poor MPGe ratings, but they will definitely have an impact in the real world. In practical terms, what all of this means is that the Jaguar I-Pace is going to use more electricity per mile than the Tesla Model X. And that means it's going to cost more to drive the same distance in the Jag when compared to the Tesla, or just about any other modern long-range EV that's currently on the market. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party.