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Jaguar F-Type DOES mean next Jaguar XK heading upmarket

Ian Callum has said that the new Jaguar F-Type will give Jaguar the opportunity to push the next generation Jaguar XK upmarket. Autocar has been chatting with Jaguar’s design guru, Ian Callum, who has said pretty much what we said in September, namely that the F-Type’s arrival will allow the next XK to be ‘More special than a GT’. Ian also speculates that the next XK could grow in size too to be a bit more than a 2+2, but it seems pretty clear that Jaguar will be looking to take the next XK firmly in to territory currently held by cars like the Aston Martin DB9 and Vanquish.

Lexus Hybrid sales top half a million

Lexus has revealed that they’ve sold more than 500,000 hybrid cars, with the Rx 450h the top seller and the CT 200h catching fast. Unsurprisingly, as it was the first Lexus hybrid to be introduced in 2005, the biggest seller - accounting for half of all Lexus hybrid sales to date (259,000) – has been the RX 400h / RX 450h, but the CT 200h, which was only introduced in 2011, is catching up fast with sales to date of 122,000 to date. During the last seven years Lexus hybrid sales have risen from 26,000 to 113,000 a year and 25 per cent of those Lexus hybrid sales now happen in Europe, even though we don’t get cars like the HS 250h (56,000 sales) and the ES 300h (8,000 sales).

Volkswagen to crank up U.S. Passat production

Volkswagen of America is prepared to expand production of the U.S. Passat less than four months after building its first one. The automaker is looking for a sign from the market to boost production at its just-opened plant in Chattanooga, Tenn.