This week's snippets of automotive news include the Jaguar I-Pace, Mitsubishi e-Evolution concept car, autonomous driving and Toyota's V8s.
Jaguar I-Pace:
It's of little surprise that Norway has the highest number of pre-orders for the electric Jaguar I-Pace, given its local incentives for electrified cars, which mean that 35% of car sales are now electric or plug-in hybrid. Jaguar Land Rover sales boss Andy Goss said Norwegians “don’t have range anxiety” and the firm has a “healthy four-digit” pre-order book for Norway.
Mitsubishi e-Evolution concept car:
The Mitsubishi e-Evolution concept car will be turned into a fully running prototype to allow Mitsubishi to develop the technology within it for production, according to Mitsuhiko Yamashita, the firm’s executive vice president. The concept is a runner already but will now switch from being a design study to more of an engineering one.
Autonomous driving systems:
Autonomous driving systems could feature different programming for different regions, according to Patrick Lecharpy, Renault’s advanced design boss. He said: “There are different driving styles in every country, so maybe we will need to tune the logic to adapt it for each country.”
Toyota's V8s:
Toyota's powertrain chief Toshiyuki Mizushima says he is working “all the time” to find ways to keep the firm’s V8s in production. “There are many drivers who love the V8, and I am among them,” he said.
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Norway
No range anxiety with their 'leccy cars? They obviously don't get out much!
Jeremy wrote:
Not with their charging network, was just looking at the map of just one of many supplier, there is one location on it with 104 chargers on site!! must be a power station behind Tesco!
Toyota and co need to stop
Toyota and co need to stop trying to compete with each other to make better V8's, accept this is a declining market and pool resource to keep them in production. Whilst compeition normally leads to better products, right now it's probably just leading to fewer v8's.
I think I'm right in saying JLR and BMW are sharing v8's these day's which is a very sensible move by 2 companies that compete hard with one another at everything else. Sadly it means Jaguar fans have to accept turbo charging instead of superchargers it seems but I guess that's a reasonable price to pay.
Norway - Way ahead of the game
1 in 3 cars plug-in, just shows what can be done in just 7 years. My hat goes off to them!