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Excerpts from the 2016 Range Rover Press Release with my comments (rants)

Full text of Press Pack at end of article.

** Double roof fins are for vehicles with the hotspot option, second antenna is for the 3G radio – 3G, is it 2010? How many people in the car are actually supposed to share that lightning fast 3G connection? Will the extra antenna really make any difference?

** Dial graphics have been refreshed and the 5” screen resolution has doubled to VGA levels – 640 x 480.

** Ingenium TD4 brings a new blue badging to Evoque, highlighting its E-Capability

** I hate to call out a JLR employee but I’ll paste in the quote below – I think it explains why the current generation systems are so rough – no one at Jaguar Land Rover should be talking about “vast experience” or “competitive advantage” with regard their current and/or previous systems. Here’s hoping InControl Touch lives up to the hype but it’s still worrying. Do the people within JLR realize how many edges were left unpolished in the current systems?

“Land Rover has vast experience with touchscreen infotainment systems, providing a huge competitive advantage as consumers increasingly become accustomed to touchscreen technology via smartphones and tablets,” said Danella Bagnall, Vehicle Line Director, Evoque.

** Evoque’s Hands-Free Tailgate can be activated both from directly behind the vehicle, and from either side of the bumper

THE 2016 MODEL YEAR RANGE ROVER EVOQUE

– PRESS PACK CONTENTS

1. 2016 MODEL YEAR EVOQUE DESIGN

1.1 Leading-edge design with added desire

1.2 An even more luxurious interior

1.3 Five revised trim levels for enhanced customer choice

2. ADVANCED POWERTRAIN AND CHASSIS TECHNOLOGY

2.1 All-new Ingenium diesel engines

2.2 Turbocharged petrol engine for maximum performance with efficiency

2.3 Revised chassis for peerless agility

2.4 E-Capability

3. STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGY

3.1 All-new infotainment system

3.2 Ultimate in-car connectivity with Land Rover InControl^TM Apps

3.3 Advanced driver-assistance and consumer-centric systems

(more…)

Michael2015-03-07T14:02:51-05:00March 2, 2015|

For the rangerovers.net board – Ambient / Mood Lighting on the 2014 Range Rover

The Ambient / Mood Lighting system on the 2014 Range Rover, it’s a neat gimmick. The image below shows the control screen and the colors in counter-clockwise order. The final three images were shot from the back seat and give a further idea as to what changes. Door pocket lighting also changes.

Michael2014-11-18T01:20:39-05:00November 18, 2014|

LinkedIn always comes through with interesting Jaguar Land Rover tips – L462, L663, X761, L560, L538C, 16MY, 17MY, 18MY

A September post on fullfatrr.com, outed the Holland & Holland Range Rover well in advance of yesterdays official reveal. Within that post was some info from a JLR contractor’s LinkedIn page. LinkedIn has been a great source of this type of info for a long time. I’ve posted a few times in the past using info from those pages – specifically about the InControl system designers.

And now we get some new confirmed model numbers and info that (Jaguar) Land Rover nerds will love – nothing secret just interesting and one search leads to another… And this info is all out there, so it’s obviously not news in the urgent sense but this post lets me put it all in one place.

L462 is the next Discovery / L663 is the next Defender

From that post:

*******

BAK Automotive Development Limited

May 2014 – Present (7 months)Jaguar Land Rover – Gaydon

Working specifically within the Engineered to Order Department (ETO), which has recently been renamed SVO department, or Special Vehicle Operations.
I will be working on the design, development and project management of special vehicle models, concentrating on, exterior and interior trim parts, across all special variants of the Jaguar and Land Rover models, which will include parts such as unique front and rear bumpers and valances, sculptured rocker panels, sports trims, side rails, mud flaps and boot lid spoilers.
I am currently working on the following vehicle line ups:-
L494 – Range Rover Sport SVR 15.5MY
Wheel Arch Extensions – SPATS
Bumper / Fender Bracket
L405 – Range Rover Holland and Holland 16MY
Bespoke Front Grille
L462 – Discovery 17MY
Door Rubbing Strips
L663 – Defender 17MY
RMDV2 Input
Project 7 – 16MY
Water Management – Drain Bag
"B" Pillar Seals
Modified Door Window Regulators
I also work closely with the supply chain to deliver the above items efficiently and to build schedule.

*******

Then another search leads to a document that should sit behind a secure webpage but lucky for us it doesn’t.

The Jaguar and Land Rover STA Guideline: Programme What to Where submission requirements, that lists all of the upcoming models for suppliers submissions to JLR. The document is from May 2014. While it is publicly accessible I’m not going to link to it directly nor post all of the contents of the document, but here’s the interesting bits:

L405 Current Car
L494 Current Car
L405 14MY
L405 Hybrid
L405 LWB
L405 15MY & 15.5MY	First mentions of 15.5MY
L405 / L494 (D7u) 16MY	These are platform related? D7u
L462 L494 & L405 (D7u) 17MY	Same as above but adding in the Discovery Sport
T5 Current Car & 15 & 16MY	Only T5 left is the LR4/Discovery 4
Defender Current Car
Defender 2015 / 2016 MY
XK / XF / XK Current Car
X152 AWD /16MY	Here’s the F-Type AWD model that was just announced
X152 Convertible
X152 Coupe
X250 14 MY
X250 RS
X260	This is the next XF
X351 14 MY
X760	Jagaur XE
X761	This is the Jaguar SUV, teased as the C-X17 concept
L359	Dead man walking for most of the world
L538
L550	Discovery Sport
AJ200 Petrol	Ingenium Engine
AJ200 Diesel	Ingenium Engine

I’ll close this out with a few more interesting random LinkedIn Experience posts, my italics are for emphasis:

******

PMST Leader Discovery 3 & Range Rover Sport

Land Rover

January 2000 – December 2002 (3 years)gaydon, england

Bonnet and fender PMST leader for the T5 platform that included a Defender replacement which didn’t continue and the Discovery 3 and the original Range Rover Sport.

*****

On the item below it’s the “C” at the end of the L538 that makes it interesting. The L538 is the Range Rover Evoque and the C indicates the convertible model. They first showed it back in 2012 but from the various L538C posts, it appears the engineers are still working on it.

Lead DM Engineer

Jaguar Land Rover

April 2013 – Present (1 year 8 months)

D8 Platform:
L550
L538C

*****

This one was dated July 2013 – Present and adds even more model numbers and model years. The X761 is the Jaguar SUV. The L560 may be the all new Range Rover model that Gerry McGovern dropped hints about a few weeks ago. And except for the X760, the other Jaguar models are all future products.

Programmes involved:
X760 16MY/17MY
X260 16MY/17MY
X261 17MY
X761 17MY
L560 18MY
X360 18MY

*****

Way too much text, done.

Michael2014-11-06T20:45:31-05:00November 6, 2014|

A 2014 Range Rover Rant, or How you’ll always know if you’re listening to a Pop or Rock station; always.

I’ve been ranting about the utility of 12.3” TFT LCD screen that Range Rover has used for its virtual gauges since 2010. When I drove a 2013 model for the first time, it was the first thing I was hoping to see. There was audio info and even navigational cues in the once black void between the two “gauges”. Now having a full week in with my 2014.5, I can say it’s missing the last bit of polish. I’m not going to address the frustratingly slow interfaces yet, this rant is specifically calling out the display of song information(or lack thereof) on both the digital gauge screen and the center touchscreen. Here we go…

The gauge display when playing a Sirius Satellite Radio song: sat-gauge1 :

It shows us that it’s Sirius, SAT 1 shows us that it’s a channel on the first screen of SAT presets, not that I care. Seriously, does wasting that space with SAT 1 help anyone? Does anyone care that it’s the first page of SAT presets? Anyone? “Bridge” is the channel name and the Channel number is 32. Notice it does not display the song name or artist name. So let’s look to the 8” touchscreen and its default Home menu for the information we’re seeking – notice the information to the right of the “Audio/Video” button. maindisp-home

Here we see again it’s SAT 1, the preset page(can anyone explain why I should care?). It’s playing Channel 32, Bridge. But this time we get a new and totally amazing piece of information – is it the song title? Is it the artist?? No, it’s the genre of the station currently playing. Then below that they kill more space with the Meridian logo because that’s the mode I have it in. So yes the music sounds great but by default, we still don’t know what we’re listening to. But we know it’s a Rock station, so that really, really makes up for it.

So let’s be daring and hit the Audio/Video button, maybe the information we seek is there… maindisp-av
Great! Finally, we really get some more info, well just one new piece of glance-able info – the artist’s name. If we want more info, then you’ve got to press that “i” button.

So maybe you’re thinking it’s just a Satellite Radio issue, it’s got to be better when playing from an iPod. Right? We’ll do this one in reverse. Audio/Video display for iPod song – Album/Artist/Track all displayed!! maindisp-av-ipod

Home menu shows us the Song Title – it would be nice if they lost the Meridian logo and gave us Artist too. As the driver, I couldn’t care less about any marketing deals they’ve made. There are Meridian logos on the physical speakers in the car, I don’t need a digital one too. And yes, you could pick Dolby or DTS and the appropriate logo is shown but who really cares? It’s a waste of very limited visual space.

maindisp-home-ipod

The gauge display, again a little more info but still plenty of useless redundancy. So the Music: iPod line tells us it’s playing from the iPod. The second line with iPod is showing the name of my iPod, which is just “iPod”. Then the final line we get Track number and Song title.

gauge-ipod1

The name of my iPod just exacerbates the issue but it also proves a point, why is there such redundancy? Yes we need to know the source, I’m fine with that but why not place the iPod’s name on the first line and use the new, now empty space for the Artist name? It’s better than Satellite Radio but still needs improvement.

It’s these frustrating little details that take an almost perfect vehicle and make it less so. And the worst part is that these are all features that are constantly in your face, you’re looking at one of these screens and always missing key info that could very easily be displayed – a frustrating reminder of what could be.

How much of this is regulations and contracts and how much is actual design?

But hey, at least we know it’s a Rock station…

Michael2014-05-11T02:16:55-04:00April 19, 2014|

Reading through the 14.5 Order Guide shows LWB & Autobiography Black clues were hidden in plain sight

The above shot is from the Range Rover 14.5MY UK Pricing & Order Guide, which was public before the Autobiography Black was announced. There’s lots of neat info in it. Right there on the first page of data was the yet-unannounced Range Rover Autobiography Black LWB.

First the “Autobiography Black Badge” which was used for a 2011 model on the previous generation Range Rover but not on the current model yet, so that was a clue.

Then a little further down, starting with the Hybrid AAG Badge.

We knew what the Hybrid AAG was, which leads us to the L’ AAG Badge – which we now know is for the LWB designation.

So that info was right there in front of our noses, hopefully next time I’ll read a little closer the first time around.

Does anyone out there know what AAG stands for?

Michael2013-11-19T21:15:33-05:00November 15, 2013|