In today's FT, the wording leaves a lot of wriggle room though.

Jaguar Land Rover is revving up in the race to build the cars of the future, with a promise that electrified versions of all its models will be available by 2020.

The UK upmarket carmaker said that every vehicle in its range will have the option of some form of electric motor technology by the start of the next decade. It is the latest car manufacturer to make such a pledge.

“Every new Jaguar Land Rover model line will be electrified from 2020, giving our customers even more choice,” said Ralf Speth, chief executive.

“We will introduce a portfolio of electrified products across our model range, embracing fully electric, plug-in hybrid and mild hybrid vehicles.”

I can just hear it now, "no it's not the rear diff guv, it's your commutator brushes. It's a common fault, they should have put a bigger bearing in the motor"  3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

The Ralf Spelf interview on BBC Breakfast seemed more of a parody of a high executive explaining his company's future, I had to check it wasn't a comic take off, think JLR need a new front man his accent didn't help along with some real dodgy marketing speech  my PC is slightly to the right of Genghis
2012 HSE SD4 In Orkney Grey now gone, best car ever.

Our local Midlands rag cocked up the story on their website - they stated that ALL JLR's would be electric in 3 years - no diesels or petrol at all....

I bet that went down well with all the people working at the new Wolverhampton engine plant.  3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

all new model line up vehicles from 2020.......

IIRC the new Evoque is out in 2019, and the ever impending new Defender any time in the next ?? years

as far ive seen those are the only 2 new models in the near future. So the ingenium plant at Wolves etc should still be working as it currently does for another 10 years at least.

I was wondering how all this will pan out in real life? The claims made for the range of an electric vehicle are based on travelling along nice tarmac roads so what is it like in real life when a farmer with his jap pickup (or LR Defender?) loaded up with bales and pulling a trailer spends all day driving through muddy fields and up and down hills? Unless there is substantial progress in battery technology then I can't see that it will be possible to ban totally the sale of IC powered cars in 2040. There will have to be exceptions for certain categories eg tractors (and not the Chelsea variety), and perhaps all pickups will be hybrid so that you can't use IC power on public roads. 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

I think we will see mild hybrid electrical assist devices in most vehicles to start with as the infrastructure to support full electrification is many miles off. Perhaps something similar in concept to this "doped" pro-cyclist bike




- undetectable to naked eye. But I suppose the stupid grin on rider's face gave him away  Jules

Apparently when light bulbs were invented the view was that there would be no demand for them because few houses had electricity. Sounds like we are at that stage with EVs 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

I have just been informed that if you want an electric Defender type vehicle, this might suit you http://www.bollingermotors.com/
Not British, but definitely practical. And it is sized in feet and inches. Just needs a Type 2 charger connection, right hand drive, and a sheepdog and it's good to go.

Perhaps this is the new Defender? 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

I wonder what that was modelled on? It has even got external door hinges!

Looks like fun!

Bob 10MY (Sept 09) TD4 HSE Auto in Stornoway Grey (Now Gone)

08 FL2 TD4 SE Manual in Rimini Red (Now Gone)

LR have been working on electric vehicles for some time now, as one might expect. For a while they had an electric Defender pulling the road train at the Eden Project:

https://www.lro.com/reviews/featured-vehic...c-defender
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/102319...oject.html

Even had HDC apparently, although some way off production-ready otherwise.

dorsetfreelander wrote:

Apparently when light bulbs were invented the view was that there would be no demand for them because few houses had electricity. Sounds like we are at that stage with EVs

dorsetfreelander wrote:

I have just been informed that if you want an electric Defender type vehicle, this might suit you http://www.bollingermotors.com/

And it is sized in feet and inches.

They are real measurements non of that foreign nonsense!

Wot, like sticks, stones and £s.

Found this in my travels

"What a strange, complicated system the Imperial system is. With pounds (abbrev. lb) and ounces (abbrev. oz) then there are 16 ounces to 1 lb, 14lbs to 1 stone and 112lbs to a hundredweight (abbrev. cwt) and 20 cwts to a ton. You can’t do simple calculations such as adding and subtracting, let alone multiplying and dividing on an ordinary calculator, you have to have a special one. No wonder most of the world uses the far simpler metric system!

At one time, in the 1970s, the UK was serious about converting to metric and even had a Metrication Board to help people to change to metric. Some of the stranger enquiries the Board had from the public included one about the metric equivalent size of knitting needles and a metric conversion of a force 8 gale!

The government changed it’s mind about going metric and decided to stick with imperial because the change “would confuse old people”. Not only is this ageist, as older people might be a bit slow physically but not necessarily mentally, it was also just an excuse or a short-sighted money saving cut. The argument is also flawed as although it would confuse some older people there will become a point when they are no longer with us, but we would have some other older people year after year as people continue to age - we will always have some old people. It is a great pity as everything is measured in metric now. All engineering, medical, scientific and just about any work you can think of is done in metric, then we have to convert it back into imperial to satisfy a few old people. The daftest thing is that schools teach in metric and when pupils leave school all that work is undone to get them to use imperial. Finally the government ditched the whole idea of going metric on the basis of our “special relationship” with the USA. You know, it’s that give and take relationship where we give and they take and we do whatever dirty work they tell us to do."




J