Land Rover auto news

Jaguar/Land Rover reportedly chalks up $1.1B loss

The steep downturn of the world's luxury automotive markets has taken a toll on Jaguar/Land Rover, and the company's bottom line has taken a huge hit as a result. Automotive News is citing a Financial Times report that says Tata Motors' British luxury marques lost 673.4 million pounds ($1.11 billion U.S.) in 2008. That's a $2 billion swing from the 641.5 million pound ($1.05 billion) profit the British brands earned in 2007. Tata Motors said last month that Jaguar/Land Rover lost 306 million pounds ($504 million) for for the fiscal year ending March 2009.

The Financial Times report comes as Tata Motors is working out a deal with the British government to provide short-term financing for the cash-strapped automaker. The report that says the U.K. government is willing to provide a 175 million pound ($288 million) commercial bridge loan to keep operations running. The reports says Tata Motors would like a 12-month loan, while the British government would like a six-month term, along with representation on the board.

Gallery: 2010 Jaguar XJ

British government drags its feet, Tata threatens to cancel Indica EV for the UK

In January, the UK government set aside £2.3 billion for loan guarantees to help automakers start producing electric cars on the island. In April, Tata applied for £10 billion from the program to build its Indica Vista EV. Last week the Indian firm was told that it would be another eight weeks before the Department for Business Innovation and Skills would decide on Tata's application.

Tata can't understand what the holdup is and plans to deliver a petition to the minister in charge of the program to make its case. It can't help that while Tata waits it's watching UK government figures give speeches at Nissan facilities in an attempt to woo the Japanese automaker to produce electric cars in England. Nor can it help that Tata's Norwegian arm has already been approved by for a loan by the Norwegian government to make electric cars there.

Tata is also waiting on its €340 billion European Investment Bank loan to be approved by the UK government. That loan was for Jaguar and Land Rover aid, but the issue of both loans is said to be about the British government wanting to make sure that Tata can repay the money. If the government doesn't decide soon, they might have much bigger things to deliberate on -- like more job losses at JLR...

Tata considers more Jaguar/Land Rover cuts after massive loss

India's Tata Motors has reported a net loss of $520 million (25.05 billion rupees) for the fiscal year ending in March of 2009. Over the same period one year earlier, Tata managed to earn 21.68 billion rupees in profit. What gives? Naturally, the global economic meltdown didn't do the automaker any favors, but the main problem can be sourced back to the poor performance of Jaguar and Land Rover, which the Indian automaker purchased from Ford last year with the help of a $3 billion bridge loan.

The fact that Jaguar Land Rover accounted for $504 million of that $520 million total loss means that more job cuts and plant shutdowns are in store for the ailing British duo. Says Tata Vice Chairman Ravi Kant:

We have sent people on sabbatical, gone for cheaper low-cost country sourcing and tight control in cash flows, and are assisting JLR (Jaguar Land Rover) for a major belt tightening.

Gallery: 2010 Land Rover Discovery 4

REPORT: Compact hybrid Range Rover LRX gets green light

Automakers that hope to continue doing business over the next few years need to be increasingly aware of their fuel consumption, emissions and environmental credibility. In deference to this fact, Auto Express in the U.K. is reporting that Land Rover is moving forward with plans to launch the new LRX compact hybrid 'ute, possibly with a bit of help from the U.K. government.

According to the report, Land Rover will borrow liberally from corporate partner Jaguar's hardware stable, which is rumored to soon include both hybrid and extended-range EV options. Land Rover's innovative electric drive rear axle is supposedly on the LRX menu, which would work along with the automaker's well-known and highly-effective Terrain Response System to put power to the ground wherever possible.

If there's any truth to these rumors, we shouldn't expect Land Rover to have the hybrid LRX in production until at least two years have passed. In the meantime, the British-built, Indian-owned automaker is set to debut stop/start and regenerative braking on all of its models to improve their environmental performance.

Gallery: 2008 Land Rover LRX Concept - Black & Silver

Land Rover takes the Defender to new heights with Fire & Ice editions

Land Rover Defender Fire & Ice editions - Click above for high-res image gallery

It doesn't get more back-to-basics than the Land Rover Defender. While most of the world's most hard-core off-roaders - Toyota Land Cruiser, Mercedes G-Wagen, Hummer H2 - have all gone luxed-out, the Defender soldiers on as the bare-bones option. Essentially the same body-on-frame design from 1948, the Defender is still hand-assembled. But what's Land Rover to do when the market demands luxury? Lux out the Defender, of course.

The limited-production Fire & Ice editions come packed with all the features they could fit in the Defender: Recaro buckets, leather and Alcantara trim, diamond-turned alloys, color-coded head- and tail- lights, glass sunroof panel, running boards and more. The Fire edition comes in a special Vesuvius Orange metallic paint, the Ice edition in Alaska white, both offset by Santorini black accents. All that kit drives the price of the special Land Rover up to €68,400, the equivalent of about $95,000. Just 850 examples will be on offer in various markets across Europe, China and in South Africa. Check out the high-res images in the gallery below for all the angles.

Gallery: Land Rover Defender Fire & Ice editions

Review: 2009 Land Rover LR2 HSE is naughty by nature

Land Rovers have always gone their own way - often literally. While off-roading demands a low center of gravity and muddy trails would seem to warrant hose-out interiors and body-on-frame-construction, the British automaker has long contented itself building tippy-looking unibody boxes with tall greenhouses and opulent cabins - the anti-Humvee, as it were. Further, in recent iterations, they've packed their products with immense electronic systems, air suspensions, dial-a-topography Terrain Response controller, and so on... the very sort of complexity that ought to be enough to send English sports car enthusiasts running back to their therapists' offices.

And yet, the formula has always worked - vehicles like the Range Rover and Discovery (now LR3) have somehow managed to earn both Kalahari-traversing credentials and valet stand privileges. Other companies have attempted the leather-lined off-roader thing before (Lamborghini, Lexus, Hummer, Porsche, and LaForza come to mind), but while some have added the trappings of luxury to their SUVs, exactly no one has been as successful in marrying their vehicles to the notion of aristocracy - the sort of "Lord and Master of All That I Survey" quality that has remained Solihull's historic preserve. In short, Land Rovers have always been a gloriously and uniquely British contradiction on wheels - a fact that goes some way toward explaining why your author remains more than a little conflicted when it comes to this LR2.

Click through to the jump to find how it all shakes out.

Gallery: 2009 Land Rover LR2 HSE - Review

Photos copyright (C)2009 Jonathon Ramsey / Weblogs, Inc

Continue reading Review: 2009 Land Rover LR2 HSE is naughty by nature

Tata looking to raise ?1 billion to keep Jaguar, Land Rover going

We don't know how many times through the millennia one gentleman has told another, "Be careful with her - she's beautiful, but she's expensive." We would like to know if Alan Mullaly offered that warning to Ratan Tata (above) before the latter bought Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR). As with the Blue Oval before it, Tata Motors is about to throw billions at the English luxury marques and it is looking for help doing it.

Tata wanted the British government to guarantee a £340 million loan ($515M USD) Tata received from the European Investment Board. The government refused to underwrite the entire amount, and it was written that the government additionally wanted Tata to invest up to another £400M ($605M) in JLR (on top of the £900M ($1.36B) Tata pitched in last summer) and put £50M ($76B) on the table before it would underwrite anything. The government is also said to have wanted veto power on top executive choices and labor plans.

Those talks, unsurprisingly, went nowhere. Now Tata is looking to banks for £1 billion ($1.5B) in cash and underwriting help. Citigroup is has begun the search for lenders to provide the money by September, which everyone expects to come with heavy-duty interest rates. With the state of the market and Tata's other recent purchases, 2009 is shaping up as an expensive year for the Indian company.

Rumormill: Jaguar to build extended range-EV version of new XJ in 2011

Jaguar will be able to introduce this new model now that it has approved for a new EU loan for developing greener cars. Jaguar already has an advantage over some of its competitors because the full-size XJ is comparatively light thanks to its aluminum construction. Lotus Engineering and Caparo are helping Jaguar with development of the ER-EV powertrain.

Additionally, Jaguar and Land Rover are rumored to be developing micro-hybrids, full parallel hybrids, smaller diesel engines, and boosted gas engines along with even more weight reductions for the full lineup.

New York Preview: 2010 Land Rover Range Rover is awash in new power and tech

While Land Rover's sales have been flagging like almost every other automaker in this economy, it has been the company's venerable Range Rover SUV that has held down the fort, maintaining its share better than any other product in the British automaker's empire. This is a particularly impressive feat, as the Range Rover is the longest-serving model in the company's off-road arsenal to go without a major update. Until now.

Not that you can tell from the outside terribly easily, mind. The outgoing model is something of a style icon, so you could forgive LR stylists for not wanting to futz unnecessarily with the styling. Still, changes are substantial yet modest - there are new headlamps, a new grille, a refreshed bumper cap, relocated fog lamps, and a triple theme to the sides and rear of the vehicle that includes three-section fender vents, 'three-stripe' LED side indicators, and new LED taillamps that incorporate the same 'three-stripe' motif.

Inside, the changes are more dramatic, punctuated by a new virtual gauge cluster that utilizes a 12-inch Thin Film Transistor (TFT) screen in place of traditional analog needle instruments - Current Mercedes S-Class owners enjoy a similar setup. Other interior adjustments include a raft of new switchgear, a revamped steering wheel with new multi-directional thumbpads, a new leather headliner and a much-needed upgrade to the navigation system. The new GPS system is hard-drive based touchscreen setup that also includes enhanced USB connectivity and a dedicated iPod port.

Click on the jump for more of this writeup and a detailed press release.

Gallery: 2010 Range Rover

Continue reading New York Preview: 2010 Land Rover Range Rover is awash in new power and tech

New York Preview: 510-hp Range Rover Sport emphasizes the "S" in SUV

Like the new LR4 and classic Range Rover, the Range Rover Sport also gets plenty of upgrades for the 2010 model year. Like the regular RR, the Sport gets the same 5.0L direct-inject V8s from Jaguar in either naturally aspirated or supercharged guise plus a new six-speed automatic transmission. The NA puts out 375 hp and 375 lb-ft of torque while the force fed mill creates 510 hp and 461 lb-ft of torque, the latter good for 5.9-second sprints to 60 mph. The Sport's exterior has also been tweaked with a new two-bar grille centered in the revised front end and new rear tail-lamps nestled above a redesigned rear bumper. The interior has also been redone with higher quality materials and a new steering wheel that includes paddle shifters on the supercharged model. Throw in enough electronic nannies to make even the Queen look like a good driver and you've got an eminently more capable sports SUV than the one it replaces.

Gallery: 2010 Range Rover Sport

Continue reading New York Preview: 510-hp Range Rover Sport emphasizes the "S" in SUV