Jaguar Land Rover

Convertible, SUV, News

Range Rover Evoque Convertible revealed

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Land Rover has unveiled the Range Rover Evoque Convertible.

Described as the world's first luxury compact SUV convertible, the new model has been engineered to meet Land Rover's 'rigorous standards', ensuring 'exceptional structural rigidity'.

The Evoque Convertible's exterior design is made possible by a fabric roof shaped to create a 'crisply defined' silhouette that remains faithful to the original design. Its Z-fold mechanism lays flush with the rear bodywork for a sleek, uncluttered appearance when lowered. The fabric roof is the longest and widest currently fitted to any vehicle on sale today.

The fully-automated roof folds in 18 seconds, and can be raised in 21 seconds, at speeds of up to 30mph. When closed, Land Rover says it provides high standards of refinement with a layer of acoustic insulation 'ensuring interior comfort on a par with five-door Evoque'. In addition, the position of the roof doesn't affect loadspace, with 251-litres of boot space. A Roll-Over Protection Device, featuring roll-over bars hidden in the rear bodywork, deploys two aluminium bars within 90-milliseconds in the event of a roll-over situation to protect occupants.

On the inside, a high-res 10.2-inch touchscreen with Jaguar Land Rover's next-generation infotainment system and InControl Touch Pro debuts. Raising the standard of connectivity for the brand, the highly-responsive and super-fast InControl Touch Pro offers smartphone integration, door-to-door navigation, 3G connectivity and a premium sound system.

A choice of four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines are available with the 240PS Si4 petrol providing the performance while diesel power comes from Land Rover's 2.0-litre Ingenium engines with fuel economy of up to 55mpg and CO2 emissions as low as 149g/km.

Gerry McGovern, Land Rover Design Director and Chief Creative Officer, commented: "Range Rover Evoque Convertible is a vehicle for all seasons. Its uniquely distinctive design and world-class engineering adds another dimension to the Range Rover family, further enhancing its desirability and appeal."

The new Range Rover Evoque Convertible goes on sale from Spring 2016 with prices starting at £47,500 OTR for the TD4 HSE Dynamic derivative.

Concept Car, Hypercar, Saloon, News

Jaguar to feature at WIRED2015

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Jaguar has confirmed it will showcase its technologically-advanced XF saloon car at WIRED2015.

WIRED magazine's annual two-day flagship event brings the WIRED world to life, and is recognised as the multimedia authority on the future, in print and digital. The XF will be joined by the C-X75 concept hypercar, shown for the first time in the UK - which features in the new Bond adventure, SPECTRE.

Senior Jaguar executives Kevin Stride (XF Vehicle Line Director), Adam Hatton (Creative Director, Jaguar Exterior Design), Alister Whelan (Creative Director, Jaguar Interior Design) and Peter Virk (Head of Connected Technologies and Apps) will support the presentation of the all-new XF at WIRED. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) will also offer exclusive workshop sessions at the WIRED conference.

The appearance of the new XF will focus on the car's 'inherently innovative' technologies including InControl Touch Pro (offering door-to-door navigation, iOS and Android connectivity and Meridian digital surround sound), Jaguar Configurable Dynamics, All-Surface Progress Control (enabling smooth, drive-away on low friction surfaces such as snow and ice), laser head-up display, autonomous emergency braking, adaptive cruise-control with queue-assist, lane keep-assist, intelligent speed limiter and semi-automated parking.

Chaired by WIRED UK Deputy Editor, Greg Williams, and supported by additional speakers from WIRED2015, two 30 minute thought-leadership sessions will cover topics designed to stimulate discussion and debate by experts in their field. The first session is scheduled for Thursday 15th: 'Humanity in the digital age', with the second scheduled for Friday 16th: 'Integrated innovation: Car design and Engineering'. Both sessions will be filmed and published by Jaguar and WIRED at the event.

In addition, Jaguar Land Rover will show some of the company's future technologies and research projects, including: Mind Sense - Jaguar's research project to see if a car could effectively read the brainwaves and monitor if the driver is alert and concentrating on driving. The most common method for monitoring brainwaves is close to the source using sensors attached to a headband, to circumvent this requirement, Jaguar Land Rover is investigating methods in use by NASA and the US bobsleigh team to develop pilots' concentration and focus. Mind Sense will detect brainwaves through the hands via sensors embedded in the steering wheel, with software adopted to amplify the signal and filter out the pure brainwave from any background noise between the driver's head and the wheel. If brain activity indicates a day dream or poor concentration, the steering wheel or pedals will vibrate to raise the driver's awareness to the lapse. User trials are underway, supported by leading neuroscientists to verify the results.

JLR is also researching how a car could heat or cool an 'air bubble' inside the vehicle, and maintain temperature and air quality using innovative new heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) technologies.

Cargo Sense is an idea for a trailer monitoring system designed to optimise cargo loading for safer towing. As well as helping users load cargo evenly and efficiently, the pressure sensitive mat would detect if a load, be it solid (boxes, furniture, car) or alive (horse), is moving around in an unexpected or abnormal way whilst traveling. The project includes the development of an App that allows drivers to monitor the status of a trailer and its cargo remotely via smartphone.

WIRED2015 takes place from 15 - 16 October at Tobacco Dock, London E1.