Jaguar Land Rover's RANGE_E Crowned SMMT 2011’S Best Automotive Innovation

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has won SMMT’s 2011 Award for Automotive Innovation for its prototype Range_e – the world’s first luxury Plug-in Hybrid Electric 4×4 with integrated V6 diesel engine.

Land Rover Range_e Concept

The award, sponsored by GKN Driveline, was presented to JLR’s Chief Engineer, Hybrids, Peter Richings at SMMT’s Annual Dinner by Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Norman Baker and Rob Rickell, Global Engineering Director, GKN.

The Range_e beat off stiff competition from companies across the car, commercial vehicle and supply chain sectors to win SMMT’s second annual award designed to showcase the importance of R&D and the role the UK plays in developing global automotive products.

Commenting on the announcement, Paul Everitt, SMMT Chief Executive and chair of the five-strong judging panel said, “JLR has engineered and manufactured a highly-efficient and technologically advanced prototype vehicle that clearly demonstrates industry’s commitment to lowering vehicle emissions and creating exciting products for demanding consumers. This award champions industry innovation – promoting cutting-edge automotive engineering and design that the UK is famed for around the world.”

Receiving the Award, Peter Richings, Chief Engineer, Hybrids, JLR said, “Innovation and technology are the lifeblood of our business and we are delighted that our work has earned this recognition from our industry peers. Range_e demonstrates the advances we are making in cleaner and more fuel-efficient performance without compromising the performance and all-wheel-drive capabilities that are at the heart of our brand and we look forward to bringing its benefits to the market in the near future. The award for the Range_e project is testament to the range of skills, excellence and enthusiasm of not just our own engineers and designers, but the people in the research and academic organisations in the UK that have supported them.”



Sponsor of this year’s Award, GKN Driveline’s Engineering Director, Rob Rickell said, “GKN Driveline is once again proud to sponsor the award. As a UK company, we recognise that research and development of technology will result in innovative solutions satisfying our society’s demanding and ever evolving needs. By doing this successfully, we and others will have a positive impact on the environment, the communities and the economies in which we all operate. The finalists tonight demonstrate fine examples of developments that embody that spirit.”

The Range_e, which was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show this year, impressed judges with its four different modes of operation, ability to deliver emissions of 89g/km CO₂ and driving range of more than 20 miles in a pure EV mode.

On presenting the Award, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Norman Baker, spoke about the importance of recognising innovation within the UK’s automotive sector, adding that a collaborative approach across the commercial, business and government sectors was essential in encouraging new technologies and products to market.

This year’s Award was judged by a panel of senior industry figures, including Dave Salt, Chief Engineer, GKN Driveline, Ralph Hosier, Engineer and Motoring Journalist and Jon Beasley, Group Technology Officer,GKN. UK engineering of the Range_e has been undertaken at JLR’s Gaydon engineering site and UK fleet trials began in December 2010. Earlier this year, Land Rover announced its plans to launch the first diesel-electric hybrid in 2013.

Source: 3D Car Shows

Range Rover Sport range_e Diesel Hybrid Prototype spotted!

Range Rover Sport range_e Diesel Hybrid Prototype

Sometimes, the staff of Green Car Reports has to travel hundreds, even thousands, of miles to bring you first drive reports, auto show highlights and exclusive green-car coverage.

Other times, we just have to visit the local shopping mall. That's where we took these exclusive photographs of a completely undisguised Range Rover Sport diesel plug-in hybrid prototype, plugged in at a convenient public charging station.

Hide in plain sight?

Spotted on Saturday in an underground parking lot at a shopping mall in Bristol, U.K., the prototype looks on first glance like a standard white Range Rover Sport.


But the "Hybrid Electric Plug-In" lettering on the front bumper and the side graphics give it away. The test car bears identical markings to the Land Rover range_e concept shown at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show this past March.


Remarkably, though, this one wears none of the camouflage panels usually seen on prototypes when venturing onto public roads. Perhaps--channeling Edgar Allen Poe's The Purloined Letter--the makers thought it would be entirely hidden in plain sight?

Diesel electric plug-in hybrid

The range_e concept shown in Geneva shared its body with the 2012 Range Rover Sport, but the equipment under its hood had several new components compared to its fuel-guzzling cousin.

That concept--and surely this prototype too--was powered by a high-efficiency, turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6 clean diesel engine, with a 69-kilowatt (93-hp) electric motor sandwiched between the engine and an eight-speed ZF automatic transmission. All-wheel drive is fitted, of course--it is a Land Rover.

With a 14.2-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack, the range_e was said to offer an all-electric range of up to 20 miles, a combined diesel-electric range of 690 miles, and a range-sapping top speed of 120 mph.

Three "fuel doors"

The diesel plug-in hybrid Range Rover we photographed is clearly a pre-production prototype, complete with various obligatory warning decals. It also has a string of lights that looked like a temporary state-of-charge indicator in the right rear window, above the J-1772 charging socket.

Altogether there are three "fuel door" openings on the prototype, two on the left and one on the right. The front left one obviously contains a J-1772 charging socket, since the car was plugged in to the garage's charging station. We expect the one on the right covers the standard diesel fuel filler.

The left rear door, we surmise, could contain a quick-charge socket--or perhaps a charging port of a different format.
 
Two interesting details: First, the center of the rear seat is marked with a "Not A Seating Position!" sign, noting that no restraints were fitted to that position. And second, there was a big bag of different cables, converters perhaps, in the load bay.

One-third the emissions

Our prototype's number plate indicates that the car we saw is a 2010 model, first registered on March 5 of that year. The CO2 emissions of the standard vehicle with a 3.0-liter diesel are given in the registration data as 243 g/km.

The "89 g/km" sticker on our car represents an emissions level almost two-thirds lower, meaning a significant proportion of the test cycle is likely spent in all-electric mode.

These appear to be the first published photos of this undisguised prototype, although the range_e demonstrated in Geneva is a sister car--also white--that was registered on the very same day.

Just for the record, this vehicle is clearly a genuine factory Land Rover prototype. It has nothing to do with the Liberty E-Range battery electric Range Rover conversion we managed to drive--barely--earlier this year.

As for our photos, we suspect a high-ranking development engineer at Land Rover was simply testing a running prototype in real-world use over the weekend--and happened to stop by for a bit of charge at our local mall.

Bristol is less than 100 miles away from Jaguar Land Rover's headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire. Coincidence? We think not.

Source: Green Car Reports
 

Land Rover debuts new Range_e concept models

British heavy-duty motor manufacturer Land Rover has unveiled three Range Rover concept models as part of the Royal Automobile Club's (RAC's) Future Car Challenge (FCC), incorporating plug-in electric and diesel hybrid engine machinery.

The brand hopes to include the technology in future models following its expected first diesel-electric hybrid car launch in 2013.

Range Rover's Range_e four-wheel-drive cars are supported by the government's Technology Strategy Board and are a "welcome" addition to the RAC hosted event, according to Ben Cussons, chairman of the RAC Motoring Committee and the FCC Technical Panel.

The RAC's challenge begins on Saturday November 5th, when cars will race the famous London to Brighton Veteran Car Run in reverse, trying to expend the least energy possible in doing so.

Mr Cussons added: "The RAC Future Car Challenge is, by definition, an event to bring future vehicle technology to the attention of the car-buying public. This will enable them to make better informed choices."

Meanwhile, fellow British car brand Vauxhall recently managed to scoop Auto Express's top award for its green technology car, the Ampera E-REV, at the 2011 Next Green Car Awards.