Tuesday, August 31, 2010

2010 Jaguar Cars XJ75 Platinum Concept Car Luxury Sports Salon


The new 2010 Jaguar XJ Luxury Sports Saloon Platinum Concept Car celebrates Jaguar's 75th Anniversary, and highlights the uniqueness of the XJ. Jaguar design team has created the Jaguar Luxury Sports Saloon XJ75 Platinum Concept, a one-of-a-kind design project on display at the 2010 Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance Concept Car Lawn.
2010 Jaguar Cars XJ75 Platinum Concept Car Luxury Sports Salon
The XJ75 Platinum Concept Car is the company's first demonstration of the design customisation potential of the striking new XJ luxury salon, emphasising the Jaguar's dramatic interior and exterior styling themes. "The XJ Luxury Sports Saloon is thoroughly modern, and captures the innovative and daring character that our founder Sir William Lyons built into every Jaguar. And the design team clearly had some fun making their first one-of-a-kind XJ design concept car in that spirit."
The XJ75 Luxury Sports Saloon Platinum Concept centre console houses a bespoke clock developed and designed in partnership with the Bremont Watch Company.
An independent British company, Bremont creates beautifully engineered and designed mechanical watches hand assembled in Switzerland.
2010 Jaguar Cars XJ75 Platinum Concept Car Luxury Sports Salon 
"From a pure design perspective, the XJ75 Luxury Sports Saloon Platinum Concept is foremost about emphasising the striking proportion and presence of the new XJ, with a distilled black and white theme, which conjures up the sense of precious platinum," said Jaguar XJ Chief Designer Giles Taylor. "At the same time, the pure sporting character of XJ is brought to the fore by keeping the car's clean graphic approach and further lowering its stance."
Dominated by striking white and black contrast precious metals platinum theme suggests, the Jaguar XJ75 Platinum Concept is a high-performance 470-hp supercharged engine 2011 Jaguar XJL with new ground-hugging front, rear and rocker panel is fitted.
Performance on the XJ75 Platinum Concept is derived from its 5.0-litre Supercharged direct-injection V8 with 470 horsepower and 424 lb.-ft of torque. Entertainment is provided by a 1,200-watt Bowers & Wilkins surround sound system with 20 speakers powered through 15 channels and state-of-the-art sound processing technology.
This XJ75 Platinum Concept Car was designed to both celebrate the marque’s past and acknowledge the increasingly personal nature of today’s luxury cars.

2010 Jaguar Cars XJ75 Platinum Concept Car Luxury Sports Salon


The new 2010 Jaguar XJ Luxury Sports Saloon Platinum Concept Car celebrates Jaguar's 75th Anniversary, and highlights the uniqueness of the XJ. Jaguar design team has created the Jaguar Luxury Sports Saloon XJ75 Platinum Concept, a one-of-a-kind design project on display at the 2010 Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance Concept Car Lawn.
2010 Jaguar Cars XJ75 Platinum Concept Car Luxury Sports Salon
The XJ75 Platinum Concept Car is the company's first demonstration of the design customisation potential of the striking new XJ luxury salon, emphasising the Jaguar's dramatic interior and exterior styling themes. "The XJ Luxury Sports Saloon is thoroughly modern, and captures the innovative and daring character that our founder Sir William Lyons built into every Jaguar. And the design team clearly had some fun making their first one-of-a-kind XJ design concept car in that spirit."
The XJ75 Luxury Sports Saloon Platinum Concept centre console houses a bespoke clock developed and designed in partnership with the Bremont Watch Company.
An independent British company, Bremont creates beautifully engineered and designed mechanical watches hand assembled in Switzerland.
2010 Jaguar Cars XJ75 Platinum Concept Car Luxury Sports Salon 
"From a pure design perspective, the XJ75 Luxury Sports Saloon Platinum Concept is foremost about emphasising the striking proportion and presence of the new XJ, with a distilled black and white theme, which conjures up the sense of precious platinum," said Jaguar XJ Chief Designer Giles Taylor. "At the same time, the pure sporting character of XJ is brought to the fore by keeping the car's clean graphic approach and further lowering its stance."
Dominated by striking white and black contrast precious metals platinum theme suggests, the Jaguar XJ75 Platinum Concept is a high-performance 470-hp supercharged engine 2011 Jaguar XJL with new ground-hugging front, rear and rocker panel is fitted.
Performance on the XJ75 Platinum Concept is derived from its 5.0-litre Supercharged direct-injection V8 with 470 horsepower and 424 lb.-ft of torque. Entertainment is provided by a 1,200-watt Bowers & Wilkins surround sound system with 20 speakers powered through 15 channels and state-of-the-art sound processing technology.
This XJ75 Platinum Concept Car was designed to both celebrate the marque’s past and acknowledge the increasingly personal nature of today’s luxury cars.

2010 Jaguar Cars XJ75 Platinum Concept Car Luxury Sports Salon


The new 2010 Jaguar XJ Luxury Sports Saloon Platinum Concept Car celebrates Jaguar's 75th Anniversary, and highlights the uniqueness of the XJ. Jaguar design team has created the Jaguar Luxury Sports Saloon XJ75 Platinum Concept, a one-of-a-kind design project on display at the 2010 Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance Concept Car Lawn.
2010 Jaguar Cars XJ75 Platinum Concept Car Luxury Sports Salon
The XJ75 Platinum Concept Car is the company's first demonstration of the design customisation potential of the striking new XJ luxury salon, emphasising the Jaguar's dramatic interior and exterior styling themes. "The XJ Luxury Sports Saloon is thoroughly modern, and captures the innovative and daring character that our founder Sir William Lyons built into every Jaguar. And the design team clearly had some fun making their first one-of-a-kind XJ design concept car in that spirit."
The XJ75 Luxury Sports Saloon Platinum Concept centre console houses a bespoke clock developed and designed in partnership with the Bremont Watch Company.
An independent British company, Bremont creates beautifully engineered and designed mechanical watches hand assembled in Switzerland.
2010 Jaguar Cars XJ75 Platinum Concept Car Luxury Sports Salon 
"From a pure design perspective, the XJ75 Luxury Sports Saloon Platinum Concept is foremost about emphasising the striking proportion and presence of the new XJ, with a distilled black and white theme, which conjures up the sense of precious platinum," said Jaguar XJ Chief Designer Giles Taylor. "At the same time, the pure sporting character of XJ is brought to the fore by keeping the car's clean graphic approach and further lowering its stance."
Dominated by striking white and black contrast precious metals platinum theme suggests, the Jaguar XJ75 Platinum Concept is a high-performance 470-hp supercharged engine 2011 Jaguar XJL with new ground-hugging front, rear and rocker panel is fitted.
Performance on the XJ75 Platinum Concept is derived from its 5.0-litre Supercharged direct-injection V8 with 470 horsepower and 424 lb.-ft of torque. Entertainment is provided by a 1,200-watt Bowers & Wilkins surround sound system with 20 speakers powered through 15 channels and state-of-the-art sound processing technology.
This XJ75 Platinum Concept Car was designed to both celebrate the marque’s past and acknowledge the increasingly personal nature of today’s luxury cars.

2010 Jaguar Cars XJ75 Platinum Concept Car Luxury Sports Salon


The new 2010 Jaguar XJ Luxury Sports Saloon Platinum Concept Car celebrates Jaguar's 75th Anniversary, and highlights the uniqueness of the XJ. Jaguar design team has created the Jaguar Luxury Sports Saloon XJ75 Platinum Concept, a one-of-a-kind design project on display at the 2010 Pebble Beach Concours D’Elegance Concept Car Lawn.
2010 Jaguar Cars XJ75 Platinum Concept Car Luxury Sports Salon
The XJ75 Platinum Concept Car is the company's first demonstration of the design customisation potential of the striking new XJ luxury salon, emphasising the Jaguar's dramatic interior and exterior styling themes. "The XJ Luxury Sports Saloon is thoroughly modern, and captures the innovative and daring character that our founder Sir William Lyons built into every Jaguar. And the design team clearly had some fun making their first one-of-a-kind XJ design concept car in that spirit."
The XJ75 Luxury Sports Saloon Platinum Concept centre console houses a bespoke clock developed and designed in partnership with the Bremont Watch Company.
An independent British company, Bremont creates beautifully engineered and designed mechanical watches hand assembled in Switzerland.
2010 Jaguar Cars XJ75 Platinum Concept Car Luxury Sports Salon 
"From a pure design perspective, the XJ75 Luxury Sports Saloon Platinum Concept is foremost about emphasising the striking proportion and presence of the new XJ, with a distilled black and white theme, which conjures up the sense of precious platinum," said Jaguar XJ Chief Designer Giles Taylor. "At the same time, the pure sporting character of XJ is brought to the fore by keeping the car's clean graphic approach and further lowering its stance."
Dominated by striking white and black contrast precious metals platinum theme suggests, the Jaguar XJ75 Platinum Concept is a high-performance 470-hp supercharged engine 2011 Jaguar XJL with new ground-hugging front, rear and rocker panel is fitted.
Performance on the XJ75 Platinum Concept is derived from its 5.0-litre Supercharged direct-injection V8 with 470 horsepower and 424 lb.-ft of torque. Entertainment is provided by a 1,200-watt Bowers & Wilkins surround sound system with 20 speakers powered through 15 channels and state-of-the-art sound processing technology.
This XJ75 Platinum Concept Car was designed to both celebrate the marque’s past and acknowledge the increasingly personal nature of today’s luxury cars.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Tell The EPA What You Think!

The EPA has posted some prototype fuel economy labels on their web site, and is asking for the public to comment. You can see them in their full detail here.

There are two proposed
designs. The first shows a large letter grade (also color coded), Green A, Yellow B, Orange C, and Red D. Apparently, everyone passes--F's are not allowed to go on sale?

The second shows some Star Trek style sliding indicators, and leaves out the letter grades, but keeps the color coding.

The EPA is inviting public comment as part of its rulemaking, and you can fill out the form at the bottom of the page and hit "send" to give them a piece of your mind.

I have already voted for Form 2 (the simpler one on the right). I think the letter grade Form 1 is too cluttered, and I don't agree with the way they are assigning letter grades. As much as I hate to sound like a whiny pre-med, the grades need to be on a curve--you can't really compare Silverados with Subarus, can you? The grades should really be assigned among like vehicles.

I also think that the fuel/energy efficiency report should be as simple as possible. Ideally, the form should present one universal metric--MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent), which recalculates all energy consumption into units we are used to, miles per gallon of EPA standard test gasoline. The MPGe also is closely related to CO2 production, so I would leave the CO2 data off of the label completely. MPGe tells you everything most people really care to know.

The fuel const estimate is neat, but how often will they update the number? What if the label is based on $2.70 gasoline and $0.12 electricity, but in fact gas is $3.50 and electricity is now $0.20/kWHr? Will we be constantly reminded now that not only our mileage may vary, but our fuel cost may vary as well?

So that's my advice to the EPA, and my comment as well. Keep it simple, leave the grades off, and be careful about the energy cost assumptions.



Volvo Sport Wagon




Volvo Sport Wagon




Help Name Ford's Iguana

Ford Motor is doing a Facebook poll to pick a name for their stow-away iguana.  I like "Henry" myself, for political reasons.