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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.

Jaguar C-X75 production run canceled

"We feel we could make the car work, but looking at the global austerity measures in place now, it seems the wrong time to launch an 800,000-pound to 1 million-pound supercar."
Those words are from Jaguar Global Brand Director Adrian Hallmark, and as true as they may be, it still stings a little bit. After all, we've been looking forward to the Jaguar C-X75 ever since word came from Jolly Olde that it was green-lit for a short production run.
Some of the cool bits and pieces the world will now be without: a powerful but relatively miserly 1.6-liter turbocharged and supercharged four-cylinder engine, two electric motors driving all four wheels and a carbon fiber chassis developed by Williams F1. Sigh.

Jaguar testing facelifted XJ in UK

Europe's flagship luxury sedans don't go through their lifecycles quite as quickly as other models need to, but with the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class hitting the road, Jaguar must feel it's time for a little update for its XJ sedan. And as these spy shots demonstrate, that's just what it has in store.
Falling firmly in the subtle-facelift category (as opposed to the full refresh), the placement of the camouflage on this new XJ appears to be hiding new fascias front and rear. Reshaped bumpers, trunk lid, grille and air apertures seem to be part of the impending facelift, but for better or worse, those black rear pillars seem to be staying put.
While Jaguar's at it, we can expect some updates to the cabin as well, with upgraded infotainment, ambient lighting and such. But don't go expecting anything radical at this stage. The XJ has been on the market for about four years, and it'll be another few before it demands a complete overhaul.