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The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.

A car writer's year in new vehicles [w/video]

Christmas is only a week away. The New Year is just around the corner. As 2014 draws to a close, I'm not the only one taking stock of the year that's we're almost shut of. Depending on who you are or what you do, the end of the year can bring to mind tax bills, school semesters or scheduling dental appointments. For me, for the last eight or nine years, at least a small part of this transitory time is occupied with recalling the cars I've driven over the preceding 12 months. Since I started writing about and reviewing cars in 2006, I've done an uneven job of tracking every vehicle I've been in, each year. Last year I made a resolution to be better about it, and the result is a spreadsheet with model names, dates, notes and some basic facts and figures. Armed with this basic data and a yen for year-end stories, I figured it would be interesting to parse the figures and quantify my year in cars in a way I'd never done before. The results are, well, they're a little bizarre, honestly. And I think they'll affect how I approach this gig in 2015. {C} My tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015 it'll be as high as 73. Let me give you a tiny bit of background about how automotive journalists typically get cars to test. There are basically two pools of vehicles I drive on a regular basis: media fleet vehicles and those available on "first drive" programs. The latter group is pretty self-explanatory. Journalists are gathered in one location (sometimes local, sometimes far-flung) with a new model(s), there's usually a day of driving, then we report back to you with our impressions. Media fleet vehicles are different. These are distributed to publications and individual journalists far and wide, and the test period goes from a few days to a week or more. Whereas first drives almost always result in a piece of review content, fleet loans only sometimes do. Other times they serve to give context about brands, segments, technology and the like, to editors and writers. So, adding up the loans I've had out of the press fleet and things I've driven at events, my tally for the year is 68 cars, as of this writing. Before the calendar flips to 2015, it'll be as high as 73. At one of the buff books like Car and Driver or Motor Trend, reviewers might rotate through five cars a week, or more. I know that number sounds high, but as best I can tell, it's pretty average for the full-time professionals in this business.

Jaguar I-Pace vs. Tesla Model X and Model S: How they compare on paper

When Jaguar released its first specifications on the 2019 I-Pace, we decided to see how it stacks up with a number of other EVs including the Tesla Model 3, Chevy Bolt EV, and Hyundai Kona EV. The reason being that they all deliver between 200 and 300 miles of range, and they were all quite close in size. But it wasn't a perfectly accurate comparison, because the Jaguar occupies an odd space in the electric market. While it offers similar range and size to those more entry-level EVs, it packs substantially more power, more brand cachet, and, once the official pricing was released, a much higher price tag. As such, we wanted to also compare it with the cars synonymous with luxury electric motoring (literally), the Tesla Model X and Model S. We're only comparing it with the base-level 75D models of each Tesla, since they are the closest in price and performance to the Jaguar. You can see the raw stats below, and can find more analysis and highlights farther down. If you'd like to compare these cars with others, be sure to try out our comparison tools. Performance All three of these electric cars use a similar powertrain consisting of two electric motors, one up front and one in the rear to power all four wheels. The Jaguar I-Pace's 394 horsepower and 512 pound-feet of torque is a fair bit more than the 328 horsepower and 387 pound-feet combined power from the Teslas, according to Motor Trend. But in the sprint to 60 mph, the Jaguar doesn't really gain an advantage. It's 0.4 seconds quicker than the Model X, but 0.3 sec. behind the Model S. This is despite the Jaguar weighing about the same as the Model S, and a few hundred pounds lighter than the Model X. View 32 Photos At 90 kWh, the Jaguar also has a larger battery capacity than the Tesla 75D models, but range is again mid-pack between Musk's cars. At 240 miles, it's just 3 miles ahead of the Model X, and 19 miles behind the Model S. The I-Pace and Model X also are about as hungry for electricity as each other, both with an energy consumption estimate of about 36 kWh/100 miles, while the Model S is the most frugal at 33. All three vehicles have the ability to use DC fast chargers, with Jaguar claiming an 80-percent charge in 40 minutes at a 100-kW charger. But only the Teslas have access to the Supercharger network, and they come with credits for free charging up to 400 kWh at those stations. Exterior and Interior Dimensions In every measurable way, the Jaguar is smaller than the two Teslas.