Audi, Jaguar/Land Rover Gear Up for Luxury, Sustainability

September 9, 2009

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Calling sustainability the new luxury, the president of Audi America said that Audi hopes to be the top luxury carmaker in the world by 2015, based on adoption of sustainability as a core focus.

Meanwhile, Jaguar Land Rover has set an internal target to reduce its CO2 emissions by 25 percent over the next five years, reports BusinessGreen.

Jaguar Land Rover is putting a lot of the emphasis on reducing the carbon footprint of its inbound supply chain. Whereas previously the company’s nearly 400 suppliers brought parts to the factory separately, now Jaguar Land Rover goes to the suppliers for pickups as part of a coordinated effort.

The new system helped the company reduce its road miles by 52 percent. In the future, look for Jaguar Land Rover to move more completed vehicles by rail, as opposed to truck.

As for Audi, Johan de Nysschen, president of American operations, said that the era of “legacy luxury” vehicles that convey status without regard to cost or resources consumed is nearing the end of its life cycle.

Audi is adopting what he calls “progressive luxury,” or vehicles that might feature light aluminum body designs, vibration dampeners to ensure the car effectively uses all energy it develops and smaller, high-performance engines that require less fuel to perform, according to a press release.

“The challenge is that Americans, by and large, haven’t quite been willing to put their consumerism where their conscience is — sales of small cars have declined more than the average decline of all segments, meaning that sales are still migrating to small and medium size SUVs,” he said in a speech celebrating Audi’s 100 year anniversary in Sonoma, Calif.

“The truly sustainable solution is to give today’s consumer a much more efficient version of what they already want — whether that’s performance, space, fine finishes, or all of the above,” he continued.

Here are some videos of his speech.

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Reader Comments

Tata (Jaguar/Land Rover) have got to do a lot more than reduce carbon footprint of inbound parts, although this make make nice news to distract people from their real problems: their products don’t even comply with the new European emission standards, so they will probably need new motors. Maybe they should discuss buying motors from Audi/VW!!!

Michael | September 11th, 2009

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