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Jaguar hybrid cars due in 2013-14

Jaguar will launch its own hybrid vehicles soon after Land Rover, CAR can confirm. Parent company Jaguar Land Rover is developing battery-assisted hybrid versions for both brands but its strategy puts part-electric Land Rovers first on the launchpad in 2013.Hybrid Jaguars – set to include the XJ and XF, but eventually every model – are therefore likely to be on the market by 2013-2014, using a similar eight-speed ZF hybrid transmission to petrol-electric BMWs.The staggered roll-out of battery Jags and Land Rovers makes sense: heavy 4x4s have come in the firing line from green protestors who label them Chelsea Tractors. Hybrid Land Rovers will trim emissions and – in plug-in hybrid mode – enable even big bulky Range Rovers to drive in zero-emissions mode into central urban areas emitting nothing more unsaintly than an electric whir.So which Jaguars will go hybrid first?It's likely that the largest models such as the XJ will receive the hybrid power packs first; large cars reap the greater benefit and can more easily swallow the additional cost, put at around £10,000 in today's money.JLR's Midlands engineering bases in Whitley and Gaydon now employ 100 engineers in the expanding hybrid powertrain business unit launched 18 months ago.

Mitsubishi i MiEV Electric car launches in Japan

Mitsubishi i MiEV electric car launched in Japan at around £20,000 Until now, electric cars have been very much an oddity. The laughable G-Whiz and the Tesla Roadster are interesting in their own way, but unless you want to look like Noddy’s best friend (G-Whiz) or are happy to have a second-rate Lotus Elise at three times the price (Tesla), there wasn’t much to appeal to the normal car buyer. But it’s changing.

Future products: 3 new vehicles on the way for Jaguar, but don't hold your breath

India's Tata Motors, which bought Jaguar from Ford Motor Co. two years ago, recently approved a product plan that gives Jaguar three new models: a small sports car, an entry-level sedan and a station wagon. They will be the first new vehicles to be fully developed under Tata, but they are all several years away.