JLR future tech

Brake points and ghost cars projected on your screen and new four-cyl engines among 10 JLR tech highlights

Deep within the security cordon at Whitley and Gaydon, Jaguar Land Rover engineers are working on the future. Buoyed up by an R&D budget of £3.5bn for this financial year alone, an almost skunkworks-like spirit is evident, as showcased in a rare behind-closed-doors visit to the inner Gaydon sanctum. Here are 10 tech headlines JLR is working on...

Ingenium engine virtually tested in 'cave' room

Ingenium engines
The new four-cylinder turbo Ingenium engine family is the biggie. Production of the diesel will start in Wolverhampton's new £500m factory in January 2015, ready for installation in the BMW 3 Series-fighting XE (petrols will follow). 3 Series-beating in terms of CO2, promises Jaguar. Sub-100g/km is the target, with over 74mpg compared to the current BMW-best of 65mpg. How's the homologation going, we asked? "We're almost there..."

It's not just a class-best green engine. Jaguar wants the family to beat all others for refinement, power and torque too. That's why each Ingenium, be it petrol or diesel, will get a turbocharger, direct injection and variable valve timing. The more powerful ones will get sequential turbos; Jaguar's ruled out supercharged/turbocharged units, promising its twin-turbo units match them for transient response. And supply enough power to beat the current class-best four-pot diesel, BMW's 218hp, 332lb ft 325d. Indeed, Jaguar hints the hot Ingenium diesel even beats its 240hp 3.0-litre V6 diesel: 250hp diesel headline for the new Jaguar XE?

Four-cylinder engines at core of new Jag range

And that's with 80kg less weight than the V6, something Jaguar's ride and handling engineers are delighted about. The use of roller bearings on cam and balancer shafts, offset crankshafts and already two million miles of on-road testing means so should customers - the engineers are confident this is a 'real' Jaguar engine, more than a match for the 25 rival motors it's bought, stripped and benchmarked.

Jaguar Virtual Windscreen
The computer game becomes virtual reality: Jaguar is working on a 3D projection windscreen, for which one use could be transforming track days. Racing lines can be projected onto the windscreen (changing colour to depict braking points). Videogame-style ghost cars show where the quickest guys are gaining time (and exactly how they're doing so). An empty airfield can even be turned into a circuit via virtual cones. It's stunning, world-grade 'wow' technology; we just need the 3D projection technology to catch up.

Self-learning car, Siri-style
Like 5Live on the drive into work, but 6Music on the way back? Like hot seats on cold days? Always select Sport mode on a certain stretch of B-road? Future JLR cars will learn all this and second-guess you - the self-learning car is in the lab. Make its brain bigger by linking to your smartphone: clever cars will read your diary, set the sat nav and alert people in meetings if you're running late. The more you drive, the more it learns; there will be an opt-out for when you're off to see the mistress.

Self-learning and gesture control for 'smart' cars

More hybrids mean more Range Rovers
Hybrid will save the Range Rover. "There's no route to[as little as] double-digit CO2 except for hybrid," said Dr Wolfgang Ziebart, JLR director of Group Engineering. Specifically, plug-in hybrid. IC engines will get smaller and the electric-drive capability will grow. Fuel consumption and emissions will thus fall near to pure EV levels, certainly in the official cycle (but still with 'secret capability' away from this). For Range Rover, it means "the opportunity to enjoy it for quite a while". Phew.

Gesture control
Pressing buttons? Pah. JLR wants you to wave and swipe key controls in the future car. A wave back will open the sunroof. Scrolling a finger in the air will control the sat nav display. Swipe your hand towards you to accept a call (or bat it away to reject). JLR wants to reduce in-car button count but functionality is demanding ever more of them: this is one way to manage the button-fest.

Frickin' lasers to help spacial awareness

Laser width guidance
Those people in town who can't judge how wide their cars are - annoying, aren't they? JLR's got the tech for them - lasers, that shine markers onto the road showing how wide the car is - proving they can get through that gap without hitting the parked Nissan Micra.

Laser lights to equal no lights?
Taking lasers a step further, JLR is looking into laser lights - genuine laser beams, said the researcher, rather than current diffracted laser technology. They would use optical fibres as well, eliminating much of the bulky, heavy stuff that goes into today's headlights. A car with no lights? The design department, he said, are already showing much interest...

JLR App Store: InControl
JLR's signed up for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, but has also launched its own apps, using its InControl 'app store'. Third party apps do clever things: you can dial into conference calls on the move, with the app auto-entering any access codes, for example, or find nearby parking space availability, including prices, in real time. More headline-grabbing stuff is on the way - possibly including Facebook and Twitter, if they can work out how to make it both safe to use on the move but also actually worth having...

Maintenance tasks made easier, virtually

3D dials bring beauty back
Hate electronic dials? You'll love JLR's 3D dials, giving flat electronic displays depth and making even a fuel gauge into a work of art. Simple to do, apparently: the beautiful instrument pack could be back.

3D service and maintenance testing
No more hard-to-reach bolts or impossible-to-remove oil filters; every piece of JLR tech goes through the 3D 'virtual cave' where a team of 50 service engineers assess how easy it is to work on in practice. They're all car guys: "Everyone here loves working on cars," says the cave boss. That 2050 Jaguar XE resto will be a doddle.

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Gorbyrev

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