ONELIFE #36 – English

FUTURE MOBILITY
“ FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES WILL
GIVE THE DRIVER MORE,
NOT LESS - THEY WILL ASSIST
AND ULTIMATELY BENEFIT THE
OVERALL DRIVING EXPERIENCE”
TONY HARPER, DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING RESEARCH,
JAGUAR LAND ROVER
gps
There has never been a more disruptive time on our roads.
Not due to roadworks or congestion, but due to the vast
leaps forward technology has afforded us.
“We all, at the moment, stand on the brink of a
technology revolution,” says Dr Ralf Speth, the Chief
Executive Officer of Jaguar Land Rover. And to the head
of Jaguar Land Rover, that revolution has a name already:
“Autonomous, connected electrified cars.”
The frontline of this revolution may not seem obvious at
first glance: a Range Rover Sport wending its way through
city centre traffic in Coventry in Central England.
The car is like many others on the city’s streets, except
for the fact that it’s not being driven by anyone. It represents
part of the first ever road tests in the UK for autonomous
and connected vehicles, and is helping test a varied range
of Jaguar Land Rover research technologies that may
soon see the light of day.
While still in its infancy, the autonomous car project
is indeed the future. By 2035, 3.7 million automated
vehicles a year will be sold in the UK, according to
forecasts carried out for the UK government’s Centre for
Connected and Autonomous Vehicles. One in every eight
vehicles sold around the world by the mid-2030s is likely
to be autonomous.
A good number of them will be electrified, too. By 2050,
90% of new cars in Britain will be electric, according to a
forecast by the UK’s National Grid. And just as in the race
to autonomy, Jaguar Land Rover is leading the electric
revolution. The first fully electric performance SUV, the
Jaguar I-PACE, goes on sale this year, and by 2020, “every
new Land Rover model line will be electrified, giving our
customers even more choice,” says Dr Speth.
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