Jaguar XE review
While it is easy to get excited about the bold and beautiful F-Type Coupé unveiled back in 2014, Jaguar has arguably been far more daring with its new model the XE.
After all, it is quite a thing for an established car
brand to look at a market sector below its traditional target
demographic, one that is fiercely competitive, and decide to join the
fray. You could cheapen the luxury brand value, or worse, fail to make
an impression against those new rivals that were once of no concern.
But
this is exactly what the new XE is built to do: take on BMW, Audi and
Mercedes in the business saloon segment. And it is new, too -- properly
new. Its predecessor, the X-type, was based on the Ford Mondeo, but the
rear-wheel-drive XE is an all-new car, built in a new factory at the
Solihull plant.
What's
more, it is made from more than 70 per cent lightweight aluminium with a
technically advanced multi-link independent rear and wishbone front
suspension.
The flavours? Choose
from three engines: a 2.0-litre diesel delivering 161bhp or 177bhp, a
2.0-litre turbo petrol delivering 197bhp or 236bhp, and a 3.0-litre
supercharged V6 petrol with 325bhp.
The
XE is the first Jaguar to have these new four-cylinder, low friction
Ingenium turbo diesel engines with computer controlled oil and water
pumps. The 180PS version gives 430Nm of torque at just 1750rpm and 109g
per km of CO2, while the 163PS version offers 380Nm and 99g CO2, and
75mpg.
So what you end up with is a car that delivers class-leading efficiency.
Gearbox options are a six-speed manual and an eight-speed automatic – but if you want to take WIRED's
advice, steer away from the manual, which we found to be unforgiving
and positioned too high for swift, easy changes. The automatics,
however, are quite the opposite -- especially the new diesels, which are
superb, being both quiet and powerful. The ride is equally impressive,
with that pimped suspension setup coming into its own when the XE is
driven hard on winding country roads.
Driver
aids are on board, including self parking and automatic city braking,
while a stereoscopic camera lets the XE identify cross traffic hazards.
There
is a pleasing amount of tech in the cabin, too. This is the first Jag
to have an eight-inch touchscreen -- though WIRED still wishes the
screen was more responsive. The Incontrol app lets riders sync both
Apple and Android phones to the car and access some apps through the car
screen. This is limited right now, and only 20 apps are supported --
but more should be on their way, especially as the tech behind the skin
is a white label unit by Bosch that other OEMs will be using. No video
or games will be allowed on Incontrol, though -- which seems sensible.
Using
speech recognition tech from Nuance, Justdrive offers in-car dictation
for apps such as Twitter, and Spotify is coming to the "Incontrol"
system. The in-car WiFi is most welcome, and WIRED made great use of it,
though this is of course only as good as the mobile signal the car can
get wherever it is -- but it certainly saves battery life of your
handheld tech.
Other Incontrol offerings
include Incontrol Remote, a smartphone app that lets you connect with
the vehicle and operate features such as climate control remotely;
Incontrol Protect sends out an SOS emergency call or Jaguar assistance
call should you need one, even if no passenger has a phone with them;
and Incontrol Secure will track your XE should some nasty person steal
it.
Lastly, the Meridian sound
system in the cabin is typically excellent -- with plenty of
body-shaking bass should your musical taste require such extravagances.
To
sum up, this is a car that can more than hold its own with the likes of
the BMW 3-series and Mercedes C-class. Jaguar has produced a
good-looking, agile, technically advanced and efficient competitor in
this sector, one that should have the others nervously looking in the
rearview mirror.
Tesla Motors’ Model S isn’t just a symbol of enthusiasm for electric
driving; it’s also a sign of how customizable cars are becoming.
With Internet connectivity, regular software updates, a 17-inch touch-screen display for the control console, and even its own Web browser, it’s an impressively high-tech vehicle. And although Tesla hasn’t yet opened it up to outside programmers, some enthusiasts are already writing code that gathers data from the car or makes it do something new.
Joe Pasqua, who works for a database company in San Carlos, California, helped reverse-engineer, or decode, the protocols used to send messages between the official Tesla iPhone app and the company’s servers. After logging in with a username and password, Model S owners can use the app to access a range of data and configure various systems in their car.
Pasqua has created a free app called Visible Tesla that uses the official app’s protocols to track the status of systems in a Model S over time and can be used to schedule commands. “You can do all the basic control functions,” he told me. “You can unlock the doors, and you can turn on the heater or air conditioner, and you can change the temperature, open the sunroof—things like that. You can get location information; you can control the charging function.”
I met Pasqua, appropriately enough, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. He showed me Visible Tesla running on his car’s Web browser in the museum’s parking lot (the software runs on a PC but can configured for access via the Web).
Visible Tesla lets drivers collect data about their car.
Pasqua and scores of other Visible Tesla users share data on the way
different driving habits affect their cars’ batteries. This way they
can, for example, see if a recent hot spell has caused other Model S
batteries to drain more quickly. Visible Tesla can also effectively add
new functionality to a vehicle by triggering commands based on factors
such as location or time of day. Some owners have used it to schedule
the car’s heat to come on at a particular time, so that it’s warm when
they get in.
Pasqua has configured Visible Tesla so that it uses his car’s location to send him handy e-mail reminders. “Our grocery store doesn’t give out bags anymore,” he says. “With Visible Tesla I can bring up a Google map, draw a circle around a certain area, and say ‘Send me a text message anytime I go in that area, and here’s what I want it to say.’ So when I go to my grocery store parking lot, I get a text message that says ‘Remember your bags.’”
Tesla doesn’t seem to mind the do-it-yourself programming. Even after he accidentally bombarded Tesla’s servers with data once, Pasqua says, he wasn’t told to stop. “They didn’t send a nastygram,” he says. “They sent me an e-mail saying ‘Hey, [we] don’t know what’s going on, but you just hit us 1,000 times a second—we had to turn you off.’ Of course I apologized profusely. They were cool about it. They could’ve easily shut it down, and they haven’t done that.”
Even without Pasqua’s library, some users have found it possible to tap into a Model S over the Internet. Edward Arthur, a semiconductor designer who lives in southern Massachusetts, wrote a simple script that would check whether his car’s battery was charging at 9:30 A.M. and send him a text message if he’d forgotten to plug it in.
Tesla has not ruled out offering a software development kit for the Model S or future cars, but the company won’t say when one might be released or what it could do. “Our focus is challenging the in-house team who truly understands both our product and its potential to create and deliver a stellar owner experience,” Khobi Brooklyn, the company’s director of communications, told me.
Although Tesla’s Model S is probably the most accessible to programmers because of the way it can be controlled via the Internet, most new cars include dozens of computers connected by an internal network. A growing number of cars, especially high-end models, also come with accompanying smartphone apps, while new sensors and automated-driving functionality are introducing ever more complexity and software.
Some tech-savvy car enthusiasts are completely rewriting the software that runs on car computers. The website OpenGarages.org brings together people interested in modifying the electronic control systems inside cars, mainly to modify engine performance.
However, Tesla’s attitude toward software developers contrasts starkly with that of most automakers. Ford, for instance, sought to restrict the use of tools that enable car hacking, using a controversial piece of legislation, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which restricts the circumvention of mechanisms designed to prevent access to copyrighted works. In this case, the copyrighted work is the software that runs on a car.
Another issue is that the technology might make cars a target for hackers before long. Last August, a group of security researchers issued an open letter highlighting potential problems and calling for greater transparency from the auto industry.
But Pasqua, who has a background in computer security, says the Tesla’s protocols seem relatively secure: he doesn’t seem concerned. “I’d love see them open up all of their data,” he says.
Some Tesla Owners Pimp Their Rides with Code
A few Tesla drivers are rewriting the programming in the Model S to make the car do interesting new things.
With Internet connectivity, regular software updates, a 17-inch touch-screen display for the control console, and even its own Web browser, it’s an impressively high-tech vehicle. And although Tesla hasn’t yet opened it up to outside programmers, some enthusiasts are already writing code that gathers data from the car or makes it do something new.
Joe Pasqua, who works for a database company in San Carlos, California, helped reverse-engineer, or decode, the protocols used to send messages between the official Tesla iPhone app and the company’s servers. After logging in with a username and password, Model S owners can use the app to access a range of data and configure various systems in their car.
Pasqua has created a free app called Visible Tesla that uses the official app’s protocols to track the status of systems in a Model S over time and can be used to schedule commands. “You can do all the basic control functions,” he told me. “You can unlock the doors, and you can turn on the heater or air conditioner, and you can change the temperature, open the sunroof—things like that. You can get location information; you can control the charging function.”
I met Pasqua, appropriately enough, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. He showed me Visible Tesla running on his car’s Web browser in the museum’s parking lot (the software runs on a PC but can configured for access via the Web).
Pasqua has configured Visible Tesla so that it uses his car’s location to send him handy e-mail reminders. “Our grocery store doesn’t give out bags anymore,” he says. “With Visible Tesla I can bring up a Google map, draw a circle around a certain area, and say ‘Send me a text message anytime I go in that area, and here’s what I want it to say.’ So when I go to my grocery store parking lot, I get a text message that says ‘Remember your bags.’”
Tesla doesn’t seem to mind the do-it-yourself programming. Even after he accidentally bombarded Tesla’s servers with data once, Pasqua says, he wasn’t told to stop. “They didn’t send a nastygram,” he says. “They sent me an e-mail saying ‘Hey, [we] don’t know what’s going on, but you just hit us 1,000 times a second—we had to turn you off.’ Of course I apologized profusely. They were cool about it. They could’ve easily shut it down, and they haven’t done that.”
Even without Pasqua’s library, some users have found it possible to tap into a Model S over the Internet. Edward Arthur, a semiconductor designer who lives in southern Massachusetts, wrote a simple script that would check whether his car’s battery was charging at 9:30 A.M. and send him a text message if he’d forgotten to plug it in.
Tesla has not ruled out offering a software development kit for the Model S or future cars, but the company won’t say when one might be released or what it could do. “Our focus is challenging the in-house team who truly understands both our product and its potential to create and deliver a stellar owner experience,” Khobi Brooklyn, the company’s director of communications, told me.
Although Tesla’s Model S is probably the most accessible to programmers because of the way it can be controlled via the Internet, most new cars include dozens of computers connected by an internal network. A growing number of cars, especially high-end models, also come with accompanying smartphone apps, while new sensors and automated-driving functionality are introducing ever more complexity and software.
Some tech-savvy car enthusiasts are completely rewriting the software that runs on car computers. The website OpenGarages.org brings together people interested in modifying the electronic control systems inside cars, mainly to modify engine performance.
However, Tesla’s attitude toward software developers contrasts starkly with that of most automakers. Ford, for instance, sought to restrict the use of tools that enable car hacking, using a controversial piece of legislation, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which restricts the circumvention of mechanisms designed to prevent access to copyrighted works. In this case, the copyrighted work is the software that runs on a car.
Another issue is that the technology might make cars a target for hackers before long. Last August, a group of security researchers issued an open letter highlighting potential problems and calling for greater transparency from the auto industry.
But Pasqua, who has a background in computer security, says the Tesla’s protocols seem relatively secure: he doesn’t seem concerned. “I’d love see them open up all of their data,” he says.
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