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Jaguar Land Rover might buy another luxury brand that it doesn't need

It seems that Jaguar Land Rover may be getting bigger in the near future. According to Bloomberg, the company is looking at acquiring some tech companies, and possibly yet another luxury car brand, provided that it fits with the current lineup of cars. On the surface, this makes some sense since Bloomberg reports that a whopping 78 percent of Tata Motors' revenue comes from luxury brands. And of course, any kind of tech acquisition could be useful considering the rapid development of electric and autonomous vehicles. But dig a little deeper, and a possible luxury brand acquisition just doesn't make sense for Jaguar Land Rover. The main reason for this is that the Jaguar and Land Rover brands have the luxury market thoroughly covered. Both brands offer full luxury lines from entry-level to high-end ( Discovery Sport to Range Rover on the Land Rover side, and XE to XJ on the Jaguar side). They also cater to every kind of luxury, from sporty vehicles such as the F-Type and SVR Land Rovers, to cushy luxury machines such as the XJ and Range Rover. So whether the company is competing with BMW or Mercedes, Jaguar and Land Rover have the bases covered. There aren't any other typical luxury brands that would actually add anything to the current lineup. In fact, adding another conventional luxury brand could actually result in the new brand poaching existing Jaguar and Land Rover buyers, rather than picking up new ones. What would make more sense for Jaguar Land Rover would be to pick up either a more mainstream brand, or an ultra-luxury marque. Neither Jaguar nor Land Rover has something that competes directly with the likes of Ford or Toyota in the mainstream game, or Rolls-Royce or Bentley at the top of the luxury heap. Picking up a brand in one of these segments would allow JLR and Tata Motors to actually expand offerings and pick up more sales, rather than having an internal competitor. What path would be ideal? Probably going even farther upmarket. Supercar makers and ultra-luxury brands continue to sell well, and there's the potential for significant profit by layering on features and content to existing platforms. Perhaps the best possibility for a high-end complement to Jaguar Land Rover would be Aston Martin. Not only does it have a strong reputation and line-up, it also could handle both supercars and luxury sedans, thanks to its Lagonda sub brand. Of course it would require Aston Martin to be receptive to a purchase.

Jaguar to offer high-performance SVR models like Land Rover?

At the Goodwood Festival of Speed this past weekend, Land Rover previewed its upcoming performance version of the Range Rover Sport. Only instead of wearing the R-S badge that adorns the most hardcore of Jaguar models, the performance SUV from JLR's Special Operations unit introduced the letters SVR. And now, it seems that badge is here to stay.
Following the Range Rover Sport SVR, a new report from Motor Authority now says that Jaguar Land Rover will use those letters to distinguish the top-of-the-line performance models from both marques moving forward. As such, we might expect SVR models of the upcoming Jaguar XE compact sedan and Land Rover Discovery Sport, as well as potential new performance models based on the new F-Type and next-generation XF.
If accurate, the move would seem to separate Jaguar in particular from the R-S badge that has adorned performance models like the XFR-S and XKR-S. Both Audi and Porsche use the letters RS to distinguish its most hardcore models as well (e.g. Audi RS7 Sportback and Porsche 911 GT3 RS). Whether the similarity was a factor in shifting to the SVR moniker, we don't know, but either way, we welcome the arrival of a new generation of Jaguar and Land Rover performance models - especially if they pack the 575-horsepower version of the company's ubiquitous 5.0-liter supercharged V8. Not incidentally, that delicious powerplant gained a couple of new engine bays to call home at Goodwood as well - it's not just found in the forthcoming Range Rover Sport SVR, it's found a home in the F-Type Project 7, too.

Jaguar Land Rover to recall 44,000 vehicles over excessive diesel emissions

Jaguar Land Rover is recalling 44,000 vehicles in the U.K. due to some of its vehicles emitting higher CO2 emissions than were officially stated. The recall is said to affect vehicles equipped with JLR's 2.0-liter diesel engine in cars built between 2014 and 2018. Quite a few models are affected, including the Jaguar XE, XF, E-Pace, F-Pace, along with the Land Rover Discovery Sport, Range Rover Evoque, Range Rover Velar and Range Rover Sport. The excessive CO2 emissions were discovered by the British vehicle certification agency, who then reported it to JLR. The company is reportedly working on a fix that will satisfy the agency and bring the cars back in line with their stated CO2 emissions. As of now, JLR is not saying what the fix will entail. A statement from JLR reads: "The modifications will be made free of charge, and every effort will be made to minimize inconvenience to the customer." The U.K. magazine Which? said JLR told them owners might experience minor changes to the "overall vehicle experience." Reading between the lines there, that sounds like there could be some pretty serious tampering with the engine software, but we'll leave the speculation to a minimum for now. CO2 emissions numbers are used in the U.K. to set tax levels for vehicles, which means JLR could have gotten out of some taxation with its artificially low CO2 numbers. At this point we don't know how badly the numbers are off, so it's impossible to know how egregious the mislabeling is. There also isn't any explanation for why the CO2 numbers are off, but this is all information that could be forthcoming. The 44,000 number could rise, too, because the UK vehicle standards agency says that some gasoline models could also be involved. That would open a whole new can of worms for JLR. Some Jaguar vehicles (XE, XF and F-Pace) offer a 2.0-liter diesel option for the U.S., but Land Rover's only diesel it sells here now is the 3.0-liter V6. For the time being there's no recall out on the diesel or gas engines from JLR in the U.S. There's no chatter surrounding emissions cheat devices like those involved with Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal. Nor does the scale of whatever the problem is come anywhere near the amount of Volkswagen diesels that needed to be recalled or taken off the roads. We'll be keeping tabs on the situation to see if this expands any further than the U.K. Green Recalls Jaguar Land Rover SUV Diesel Vehicles Luxury Sedan