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Jaguar Land Rover opens new $1.6 billion factory in Slovakia

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Jaguar Land Rover is opening a new, $1.6 billion plant in Slovakia, the luxury car maker's first in continental Europe. The U.K.-based company, owned by India's Tata Motors, built the plant near Nitra, about 65 miles east of Bratislava, to initially produce 150,000 cars a year. The Slovak government is giving the carmaker investment subsidies of up to 130 million euros ($148 million). Slovakia is a regional car-making powerhouse. Germany's Volkswagen AG, France's PSA Peugeot Citroen and South Korea's Kia Motors all have a major plant in this Central European country of 5.4 million people. The company said it will shift all production of its Discovery model from Birmingham, England, to Slovakia amid falling diesel sales, vehicle taxes and uncertainty about Britain's Brexit departure from the European Union.Related Video:

2023 J.D. Power APEAL Study shows new-car customer satisfaction scores slip

J.D. Power survey results have been slightly up but mostly down for automakers this year, literally. In February, the 2023 Vehicle Dependability Study showed an overall decline compared the 2022 a month before the Customer Service Index Study did the same. The trend reversed in June with a better overall score on the 2023 U.S. Electric Vehicle Consideration Study than in 2022, then declined again the same month on with a lower overall score on the 2023 Initial Quality Study. The declines continue with the 2023 J.D. Power U.S. Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study, overall satisfaction among the 84,555 respondents down two points overall compared to 2022, to 845 out of 1,000 points. Because last year's score dropped compared to 2021, this year marks the first consecutive decline in the study's 28-year history. The study tries to "[measure] owners' emotional attachment and level of excitement with new vehicle" after 90 days of ownership by asking new owners to rate 37 attributes in 10 areas around the vehicle, such as the feeling they get when they hit the accelerator. Satisfaction with nine of the attributes is down this year versus last, fuel economy the only segment to show better results with 15 points more satisfaction. Styling and infotainment are big drags on satisfaction. Responses to new car exterior looks tallied 888 points, down from 894 last year, the largest drop in this year's study. On the digital side, less than half of those surveyed this year said they prefer using a manufacturer's built-in infotainment. From 70% of respondents in 2020 preferring to use a manufacturer's in-house software to play audio instead of Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, that's 56% in 2023. Going all-in on Google appears to have the best effect. J.D. Power said that vehicles with both Google's Android Automotive Operating System (AAOS) and Google Automotive Services (GAS) "score higher in the infotainment category than those with no AAOS whatsoever. AAOS without GAS receives the lowest scores for infotainment of the three categories."  Frank Hanley, senior director of auto benchmarking at J.D. Power, said, "Despite the technology and design innovations that manufacturers put into new vehicles, owners are lukewarm about them. While innovations like charging pads, vehicle apps and advanced audio features should enhance an owner’s experience, this is not the case when problems are experienced.

JLR shares backstage 'No Time to Die' Range Rover Sport SVR carnage

James Bond's latest adventures will take him to Norway and Scotland, as seen in the trailer for the upcoming "No Time to Die." Somewhere along the way, the British spy encounters a pair of Range Rover Sport SVRs, the ultimate high-performance SUV from JLR's Special Vehicle Operations division in one of the movie's centerpiece car chases. Now, the company has given us a behind-the-scenes look at its filming, and the automotive carnage that ensues. The filmmakers wanted to take a Bond action sequence off-road, and chose the Range Rover Sport SVR as the the bad guys' pursuit vehicle. Armed with a JLR product placement deal (Bond drives a new Defender in another part of the movie) the henchmen had no qualms picking one of the most expensive things on the menu. Unfortunately, that also makes is a bit hard to watch when machines that start at $115,000 are totaled as they careen through the air or roll onto their roofs. The SVRs share a 5.0-liter supercharged V8 with the Jaguar F-Type SVR and are the most powerful vehicles in the Land Rover portfolio. With 575 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque on tap, translating to a 0-60 time of 4.3 seconds, they're the perfect weapon for chasing a super-spy down a dirt road. As for Bond himself, 007 makes his escape in a decades-old yellow Toyota Land Cruiser Prado. Specifically, it's a 90-series, a smaller version built from 1996 to 2002 that was never sold in the U.S. but remains popular in other parts of the world. The most powerful engine had just 190 horsepower from a 3.4 liter V6 shared with the similar-era 4Runner. Despite the power discrepancy, Bond manages to dispatch the Range Rovers in spectacular fashion. Wait, this is a Range Rover promo, right? "All the stunts are for real, there's nothing that's CGI'ed," said Neil Layton, the film's action vehicle coordinator. "So to make the cars more dramatic on the screen, we had to turn off a lot of safety feature aids that's on there." Interestingly, another non-JLR product shows up in the video as well. The camera car is a blacked out (to minimize reflection in other cars) Ford F-150 Raptor outfitted with a massive rooftop boom. "No Time to Die" is hits the screens on October 8. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.